Agendas Unspoken
by K311yS
Summary: She hasn't let go of your hand yet and you don't pull away. You do smile though, widely, because there's just something about her that's so pleasing to you. You don't want to let go of her hand, you want to hold on and see where it leads you. "Nice to meet you, Santana Lopez," you finally reply, and you honestly mean it.
1. Rock The Vote!

Your eyes dart quickly around the walls of the venue as soon as you enter the small arena, flitting quick across the rows upon rows of seats until your gaze lands firmly upon the stage up front. It's not a large stage and it seems as though the band hasn't had time to set up their equipment yet. In fact, all you seem to be able to make out is a solitary podium pointing out towards the empty audience. Your first thought is lost in confusion. You know the gig isn't scheduled to start until the evening and it's only early afternoon, and sure, you're still relatively new to this part of your job, but so far, every review you've gone to garner has begun with the witnessing of sound checks and set ups and endless onstage activity for hours and hours before any actual music is played.

This is new.

Maybe you shouldn't be so surprised. The last two years of your life have been one new thing after another. You'd been happy as a high school cheerleader; you'd been more than happy with your continued advancement through your many dance classes and with the rave reviews which came after each of your regular recitals. You had an abundance of friends and an airtight plan and you weren't going to rest until you'd danced your socks off across every prestigious stage around the world and your arms were filled full with the bouquets of your success. You were Brittany S Pierce and you were going places.

That's one thing that hasn't changed: you're still Brittany S Pierce and you're still going places. It just seems that somewhere along the way somebody switched up the directions and you're now nowhere near to all of the places which you'd always dreamed you wanted to go. You know that some people would call it fate, perhaps destiny, maybe serendipity at play; yet as far as you've been able to tell, the only name you have to thank for this roller coaster ride you've been placed upon is the now world famous Lord Tubbington. Your name may be the one on the top of the contracts and it's your signature which gets scrawled across the bottom of the page, but you've never been dumb enough to think that you're the talent wielding one in this two man band. It's Lord Tubbington's rather rounded feline face that stares back at you from the t-shirts, posters, and other assorted merchandise that only attests to the success of your once made on a whim web-show. He was an instant hit. You had hoped that it would be a craze for fondue that caught on, or perhaps the healthy fingers snacks you cut up for ease of dipping during interviews, but when it comes to creating a cult like status, it's your cat that's sitting pretty and posing in the spotlight.

You're definitely proud of him. And you've learnt a lot from him too.

If it had been left down to you alone, you'd have hashed your way in a daze of words through that first ever interview and the whole show would've stalled before you'd ever even got started. Not Lord Tubbington though. He'd settled his solid gaze upon your first celebrity guest and he hadn't flinched once. He'd followed your nationally famous cheerleading coach's movements with that wily stare of his, digging silently through her secrets with his Holmes like mind until she'd cracked beneath the weight and flipped out in quite spectacular fashion. It seemed she didn't appreciate his 'Gestapo-style interrogation techniques' and his single solitary _meow _in response had swiftly turned the first ever episode of Fondue for Two into more of a fondue massacre, ending with the pot unceremoniously upturned on your bed and an extremely irate Sue Sylvester screaming insults as she threw methodically chopped up vegetables in the direction of your fleeing feline.

It's still the most watched episode you've ever produced. Even now, with your show being broadcast weekly from the hallowed halls of MTV, that original fifteen minute broadcast still sits smug atop the ratings pile. The last time you looked it had attracted close to 83million hits. You and your cat are an internet sensation, and this new feature is the prize for your fame. MTV have liked what they've seen of you, they've realised already that you possess the quality that high up entertainment execs are always waxing lyrical about, that elusive X factor, that certain _je ne sais quoi _which turns the girl next door into a name that everybody knows, and they want to capitalise on that.

Your manager explained it to you as 'maximising exposure'. Your blonde hair and blue eyes and dancers physique are dominating social media sites at present and MTV wants to give the public what it desires most. So you're here. In an empty arena, trying hard to recall what the whole deal is exactly with this Rock the Vote season of features you've signed on to front.

Sam had been the one to relay the details to you. As the guy who's always been behind the camera ever since that very first show, and more importantly, as the guy who's grown up in the house next door to yours for the last fifteen years, you trust him implicitly. Maybe more so. He'd been your one condition when you signed your first contract and now it's him who breaks down the endless lines of text for you and gives you the gist of what it is you're putting your name to in ways you understand.

From what you recall this is a battle of the bands type feature. For the next eight weeks or so you'll be shadowing the lead singer in a band called The Young Republicans, learning the ins and outs of their daily lives and then following them into a climactic battle with another local band who are being shadowed in the same way by a team of your colleagues.

It had sounded simple when Sam had laid it out to you like that, yet standing here now, thirty minutes early and in an empty auditorium, you're beginning to wonder if maybe you've made a mistake. It wouldn't be the first time and you're actually quite sure that it won't be your last - things are confusing sometimes, especially when you have so many people giving you so much information - but other people's irritation has always left you unsettled inside, and without the stoic stare of your cat to keep you company you can feel your nerves starting to fluster a little.

You reach for the phone nestled inside the top pocket of your denim jacket with the intention of calling Sam and checking again what it is you're here for, yet the sound of footsteps approaching from behind stop your actions before they begin. Instead you turn, and in that instant your mind goes blank. Maybe all the thoughts you've managed to think through in the last few minutes have seized your ability to form new thoughts, you're not sure, you're only sure that any words you've ever said have suddenly become inconsequential because walking towards you with shoulders tense and eyes averted is the most stunning expression of beauty you've ever seen.

It hits you like a blow to the solar plexus. She steals the breath from your throat and you know that the gulp of air you try to pull back has to be all sorts of obvious. Not to her; her eyes are still averted, but her companion is looking you up and down and you recognise the intent behind the smirk which falls easily onto her lips as you gulp like a guppy in front of her.

"Miss Holliday, I presume?"

Her words are short and crisp just like the blonde bob which frames her face, yet her smirk has morphed into a smile and her hand is out in front of you waiting for you to take a hold.

"Hi, no, uh… Miss Holliday, I'm not. I'm Miss Pierce. Brittany. Brittany S Pierce." You stumble across the start of your explanation and it's not the first time you've wished that your dancers grace could extend to your formation of words in pressure situations. You do take her hand though and you do return the wide smile she offers you when she informs you that her name is Quinn and that now she knows your name she's sure that she recognises you.

"You're cat woman, right? From the internet?"

"I'm… yeah." Because you don't know what else to say to that. You're used to that moniker now, so much so that you donned the leather outfit and embraced it in all its glory for last Halloween. It didn't score you any extra candy, but you left the party you'd been attending with a whole heap of phone numbers, both from males and females, all who'd wanted to take you home and stroke you 'til you purred. You shake off the memories of leather based pleasure and return your attention to the woman in front of you; you can see she's waiting for further explanation so you seek to fill in the blanks, "My show's on MTV now too, so."

"Oh, right! You're working with Miss Holliday then?"

"Sure. Kind of." You point to the laminated MTV reporters badge hanging from the belt loop of your cargo pants to offer confirmation that you are who you say you are, "Holly's overseeing the project as a whole, but when it comes to the day to day, it's me you're gonna be stuck with."

"I think we can live with that." Se turns her head to face her companion then and you know what's about to happen, "What do you say, Santana, shall we keep her?"

You know, you're prepared, yet still. When the gaze which has stayed disinterested and averted finally rises up to meet your own, you can't help but flush just a little. You feel somewhere close to thirteen again, somewhere close to that time when you stood in front of Mercedes Jones and asked her if her skin tasted as pretty as it looked, because it looked like Easter, and chocolate has always been you're greatest weakness. This woman, _Santana_, she looks like Easter wrapped up in Christmas and it's all you can do to hold your hand out without any traces of the tremors you're currently feeling inside as you ask to make her acquaintance.

You offer up a simple _Hi_ and she returns a somewhat bored _Hey_ before she drops your hand and turns her attention onto Quinn, "How long do I have to suffer this bullshit today?"

"Santana."

"I'm not joking, Q, I need this crap about as much as I need an enema-"

"Yet not as much as you need a Prozac. Can you not just chill out? You know how important this is to my father," you watch as Santana rolls her eyes away from Quinn's words, "you also know what your abuela threatened if you don't actually partake in this conservative festival of fun and frivolity."

You catch the sarcasm as it wraps its way around Quinn's tone, yet you're far more interested in watching Santana's reaction than you are in trying to puzzle out the meaning behind what had been said. She just looks so angry. So angry and yet so restrained. You can see it in her jaw, you swear you can almost physically feel the tension as it marks itself out in the grinding of her teeth.

"Fuck you Quinn," she spits out.

"Can we not get through the convention first? You know what happened to my speech giving abilities the last time you suggested that."

It's as if you're now standing in the most uncomfortable spot you've ever stood in and you're flushing for a whole other reason, because there's no way anyone over the age of PG-13 could've missed that obvious insinuation. Quinn and Santana have fucked. They do fuck. And now, before your very eyes, it looks as though they're about to have some kind of long running, heated lovers quarrel. You'd appreciate a famous LA earthquake in this moment; it seems the only viable way for the ground to open up and swallow you whole before this situation escalates into something ugly.

Instead of a well timed natural disaster, the tension is pierced by the shrill sounds of someone's ring tone. It's not yours, yours is all rap music all of the time. You can't help it. You may hail originally from the streets of Lima, Ohio, yet you know deep within that your soul was forged somewhere on the streets of Compton. This ring tone is something classical which you don't immediately recognise, and it's Quinn who reaches into her pocket and brings the phone up to her ear.

She rushes out a few quick phrases before she turns to you apologetically and insists she has to take the call. She's going to leave you with Santana. She says that Santana will 'give you everything you need'. She smirks again before she turns away and you feel the slightest whisper of heat dance across your cheeks in response.

"So."

The word is hers and you lift your eyes again to meet her gaze.

"What exactly is it you need from me?"

Everything?

The steel behind her stare lets you guess that not only isn't that item on the menu, she wouldn't see the funny side in you asking. Instead you aim for professionalism. You direct her attention towards the stage and you ask the obvious question, "What time are you expecting the band to set up?"

She looks at you as if you're speaking an indecipherable language though so you make an attempt at elaboration, "It'd be really cool to get some quotes and stuff before the show starts, that way I can really get a proper feel for you before…"

The look she's now giving you puts the last one to shame and kills any further words dead in your throat. You're not sure what you've said, but you are somewhat used to this look of absolute disdain from those who don't favour your thought process or the way you choose to present it. It freezes you up for a second as you rush back over your words to pick out any offending ones, yet you really have no idea, and her mouth is opening up to speak again and you're sure, so sure, that what's going to come from her is something harsh and belittling.

"You do realise I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about right now?" is all she actually says though, and you're so much happier to settle for confusing her rather than offending her.

It really is the least you can do to try again; your hand rising with your smile as you offer up a second handshake and a whole big attempt at a do-over, "Hi, I'm Brittany S Pierce, roving reporter for MTV and a newly dedicated member of the 2012 Rock the Vote team." You let go of her hand and give a little fist pump to underline your enthusiasm for the cause. You haven't heard The Young Republicans perform yet, but you know that if Santana has even the smallest connection to them, you definitely want them to win. You tell her just as much, that you're on her side all the way.

"Wait a minute," she stops you mid-flow, "you're seriously telling me that _you're_ a republican?"

"Sure," you answer, with the same kind of disbelief that she asked you with. You're not sure. You don't want her to know that though, so you stretch the truth just a little, "I may not have heard you perform for myself yet, but my cameraman, Sam, he's a _huge _fan."

She looks almost bewildered by your confession, and you think it's cute that she so obviously doubts her band's talent, "He's a fan?", she questions, and you want nothing more than to reassure her.

"Totally, I think he even keeps your album on repeat in his car."

Her eyes don't leave yours the whole time you're speaking and you just know that somehow she knows you're being economical with the truth.

"This is just priceless," she breathes out, and it almost sounds to you like she's laughing.

"It is?"

"It absolutely is Brittany S Pierce, because up until about two minutes ago, I thought I was the only one here who doesn't belong."

You're certain by her tone of voice as it playfully wraps around your full name that she's teasing you, yet you don't miss the implication of all of her other words; that she feels she doesn't belong here. You want to ponder that fully, but your brain shorts out the second her eyes begin a slow and torturous descent down the length of your body, pausing at your feet before ascending again at the same leisurely pace, "If you seriously think that this is some kind of rock concert waiting to happen, then it's not hard to see how mistaken I was".

Her eyes are boring into yours again, and again you're struggling to find the right stream of words to fashion a reply. She has literally stolen your breath with that long searching look and you're forced to leave it up to her to break your silence, "This is a political convention".

"Huh?"

"This," she expands her arms out to encompass the whole of the arena, "is the monthly gathering of the Young Republicans, as in, a bunch of boring moralisers talking crap from up there on that podium. Quinn's the extra special guest speaker tonight, so yeah, there'll be lots and lots of talking crap for you to focus on."

You know you're frowning at her and you want to stop, but it's crucial to you in ways you don't fully comprehend yet that you save yourself from looking anymore like an ass in front of her, and you're straining to think _really_ hard right now. Because this is a political convention and you're here to rock the vote, and you know your family are die hard democrats and you know that the opposite to democrats are republicans, so, "You mean the Republican Party, right?"

"That I do," she replies, and you really don't mind anymore that you were so embarrassingly mistaken when she partners her words with a smile, "You sure you still want to rock the vote?"

You do. More than anything.

"I do," you confirm for her out loud, "though, I'm not really, I don't…" You're not sure how to phrase the next part, because it's still really important to you that you don't look like an ass here, and you can feel your frown lines fast returning to your face as you hold in the rambled admission which wants to break free.

"Let me help you out there," she interjects when you pause for far too long, and you can't help but wonder why her tone is now laced thick with sarcasm when just a second ago she was smiling so open and easily at you. "I'm guessing you belong to the fluffy kitten brigade," she rushes it out with an increasingly hostile lilt creeping up on her voice, "the bleeding hearts and the lofty liberals who spend so much fucking time wringing their hands and crying about their lousy lot in life, that they never actually manage to achieve anything of any worth. No doubt you also hate the republicans more than you hate Satan, and you're quickly reconsidering that whole show of team solidarity you fist pumped out just a minute ago, right?"

You witness a brief flash of something which looks like the anger you saw earlier when she faced off against Quinn, before she breathes in deep and pulls her shoulders back tight. Her fists are clenched at her sides and this all feels like something so much bigger than you.

Beneath her skin she's seething, you can see it, yet you honestly don't understand why.

You want to though.

"I was just going to say that I'm not really that in to politics."

Her shoulders slump a little before she just offers you a soft and almost whispered _oh_ in reply.

"My cat also isn't a kitten, but he is kind of fluffy, so."

You instinctively keep your tone light and airy and you feel instantly rewarded when she shoots a small and flustered grimace styled grin in your direction as if she's embarrassed by her brief and unprompted outburst. Her fists uncurl and her left hand flaps about gently in front of her as she searches for words, "I take it back, alright? I'm just used to… Ugh, it doesn't matter. Let's just start again, okay?" This time it's her who's holding out her hand to be embraced by you and offering her name in introduction, "Santana Lopez, asshole apparent. I'm mostly here for the parties and free booze, though I am supposed to be speaking tomorrow, and my Daddy is Quinn's Daddy's campaign strategist, so yeah. Welcome to the shit-pit, I doubt you'll enjoy your stay."

She hasn't let go of your hand yet and you don't pull away. You do smile though, widely, because there's just something about her that's so _pleasing_ to you. You don't want to let go of her hand, you want to hold on and see where it leads you.

"Nice to meet you, Santana Lopez," you finally reply, and you honestly mean it.

You want to say something else - you want to say so much else - yet your moment is interrupted when the outside door is swung inward to crash loud against the wall, and Sam bowls jauntily on through followed closely by Holly Holliday. Your hand is back at your side before you know who let go first, and you instantly jump to attention and rush forward to help Sam with the equipment he always insists on carrying alone. Holly lets him, she's all for alpha males displaying for her benefit, yet to you he's still just the boy next door who grew up to be your best friend, and you hate to see him struggle on alone.

You also need something to distract your hands with, because all you can seem to focus upon right now is the tingle you still feel from where you were just holding hands with Santana.

After the arrival of Holly and Sam, the afternoon passes fast in a flurry of too many introductions and the final outlining of plans for what you're now learning is going to be a very important and heavily promoted election year feature on MTV. The Rock the Vote message is apparently huge, supported by movie stars and rock stars alike, and it really is something that you should've perhaps been just a little more aware of when you consider that you're the music station's newest and brightest star. Like you told Santana though, politics really isn't your thing. You know the basics, you know that Obama is The President, and you know that this year is the big election year, and now, thanks to Google, you also know that Quinn is Quinn Fabray and she's the daughter of Russell Fabray, who's running on the republican ticket in November's elections for a seat on the US senate.

It turns out that Quinn is the whole reason you're here.

She's taken a year out of her political science degree at Yale to campaign alongside her father and apparently she's kicked up quite a storm along the way. People have noticed her and people are interested and, again, what the public wants the public gets and you're the one who's been designated to deliver it to them.

You'll be spending a minimum five days a week shadowing her every move, just you and Sam and a camera, leading all the way up to election night and following the success or failure of her father's campaign. Sam has told you that the added incentive is that the democratic rival also has a 21 year old daughter who's just as vocal a component when it comes to supporting her father, and it's this that MTV believes the viewers will be interested in.

It's Sam who nudges your shoulder now to pull your attention away from your inner thoughts to focus instead on the activity up ahead on the stage. The arena is full to bursting now, all of the rows of chairs are occupied, and the deafening cacophony of noise from the audience would fit just as well at a rock concert as it does at a political convention. The energy is electric. You don't really listen to any of the speakers, yet every time there's a pause for an upswell in applause you're rocked from your reverie.

You don't even really need to be here anymore.

You've done your short introduction into camera with the conference in full flow behind you, you've conducted your first short interview with Quinn, a quick piece where it'll be easy to judge if your chemistry is right on camera, and all the shots that'll be taken of her speech tonight could just as easily be shot by Sam on his own.

You told yourself you didn't want to leave him alone though.

You told Holly you'd meet her in the morning instead of heading back to the office with her when she'd left for the evening and offered to drop you home.

You told Sam you wanted to see Quinn in action.

It's why he's nudged you. Quinn has just been introduced and she's up there now, waving into the crowd and basking in the applause. She looks radiant silhouetted against the giant American flag which has been unfurled behind the podium, and you know already that the camera is just going to love her. Her words sound warm, even amplified and echoing as they bounce back from the podium up front, and even though you don't focus in on her words so much, you do appreciate the melodic rhythm of her speech.

But seeing Quinn in action isn't really what you're here for.

All day you've been waiting for and watching Santana. Not in a creepy stalker way, just, you'd seen her leave not long after Holly and Sam had arrived and you'd seen her return not long before the conference had really started to get going, and her face had changed so much in that short space of time that you couldn't help but keep looking in an attempt to figure out the differences.

She still looked beautiful, she _is _beautiful, but it was as though something had shifted and she wasn't shining so bright. To you she looked sad, and you couldn't stop looking. You haven't stopped looking. Even now, half of your attention focused up front on your project, and you're gazing to the left of stage every few seconds to watch the woman waiting in the wings. You can't see close enough to really confirm your suspicions, but even as the crowd roars at each of Quinn's well dropped sound bites, you just know she isn't smiling. You can sense it.

And you feel sad because she's sad.

You're helping Sam load his equipment back onto the van and you just have one more journey to take back inside before you'll be ready to call an end to this long and somewhat exhausting day and head home for a bath and for bed. Quinn had been the last speaker of the night, and you think that's a good thing because after the rapturous ovation that had heralded her final rousing and butt-kicking quip about her father's upcoming and assured victory, you don't see how anyone else could've taken the stage and held the crowd's attention.

You haven't seen her since, but you do have her cell-phone number and you'll be sure to text her later to congratulate her on her speech and to confirm the time of your meeting for tomorrow.

You pass by Sam as you enter the auditorium again and he nods when you ask if that's the last of his stuff. It means you just have your bag to collect, and already your mind is drifting to what concoction of food you can throw together when you get back home.

You don't notice her standing right there until she speaks softly into the surrounding silence.

The room is mostly empty now.

And even if it's not you can only see Santana.

You respond to her singular _Hey _with a smile and she steps out of the shadows with your bag in her hand and a hurried explanation for why she's holding it, "I thought you'd forgotten it, I was going to… I don't know, give it to Quinn to give to you."

"You were?" you ask, because you're certain by the way she isn't meeting your eyes that there's something more to her being here.

"Sure. It gives Quinn a real sense of purpose when she gets to save the day."

If you knew her better, you'd call bullshit. You'd ask her if perhaps she'd been waiting in the wings and biding her time with your bag because she'd wanted to see you again. As it is, you go along with her ruse, simply happy to have her standing in front of you again regardless of the cause. You hold your hand out and she places the straps of your bag delicately across your fingers before pulling back and folding her arms across her chest.

The defensive posture reminds you of all the concerned looks you've shot her way today and you want to ask her if she's okay. Yet you still don't know her well enough.

But.

"You look about as beat as I feel."

The words leave your lips and her eyes find your eyes within the same instant. You watch her frown, you hold your gaze steady as her stare searches yours. "You think I look beat?" she questions softy, and you have to lean forward slightly to hear what she says.

"Maybe not beat," you reply, "maybe just tired?"

She doesn't answer you, she just keeps looking, and you'd love more than anything to know what she's thinking. The expression on her face is unreadable to you, it's like her frown is still etching lines across her forehead, yet her lips are trying to lift upwards into a smile.

It's confusing and it's cute as hell.

If you stand here any longer you're going to ask for her number, or if she wants to get coffee, or even if she really is okay… and you're still not sure if that would be a good idea. Not only are there some kind of professional boundaries in place that you probably shouldn't cross, but also, there's Quinn. You haven't forgotten the scene you witnessed between them this afternoon, and you don't want to get involved in any messes when Quinn is supposed to be your sole focus for being here on this job.

You take your eyes away from hers and adjust your bag so it sits across your shoulder.

"Well," you say, and it's obvious that you're ready to leave now.

"Well," she replies, mimicking you before she again falls silent.

It shouldn't be this hard to walk away from someone you've only just met, but you honestly can't get your legs to move from this moment. You want to stay and watch the way her frown eases down and her lips lift up into a full and proper smile. You want to ask her what's making her smile; you want to ask her if you can do it again.

But you stop yourself. Sam is waiting outside and the kind of smiles you want to exchange with Santana would leave him still sitting there come morning. You hold your hand out again, happy when she takes it and embraces it with her own, "It's honestly been great meeting you today Santana," you say again, "and thank you for not teasing me too mercilessly for my rock concert faux pas earlier; it must've been hard."

She laughs a little before she speaks and you want to bottle the sound and take it home with you.

"It _was_ hard," she agrees, "all day I wanted to ask Sam what he thought of my latest CD and what his favourite track on the album was." You feel your cheeks flush as she laughs again, and the heat only deepens when she reaches out and pushes gently at your shoulder with her hand, "You're okay, Britt. My teasing's pretty tame unless I don't like you, and I think I'm going to like you."

"Yeah?" you ask, and she nods like she really means it.

You tell her you think you're going to like her too and then you say goodbye. You pull the strap of the bag tight against your body and you turn and you swear you practically skip all the way out of the auditorium and to the place where Sam has the van parked and waiting.

She called you Britt and she said she's going to like you.

And professional boundaries or not, messes or not, there's now something you want to rock a whole lot more than you want to rock the vote.


	2. A Night Among Friends

It's been three days since you attended the convention for the Young Republicans, and it's three days now since you've spoken to Quinn. It didn't bother you at first; you had held a small hope that you'd be invited back to the auditorium for the second day of speeches and that you'd get to see Santana give her performance, but you still haven't heard back from the original text you'd sent to Quinn's phone congratulating her on the convention's first night, and now the convention is over.

It started to bother you yesterday when all of your calls rang through to voicemail.

Today you feel especially pissed. Holly has spoken to you three times already asking for a progress report and for some kind of information on the schedule you've put into place with Quinn. Sam has only called twice, but you know he's also anxious to hear when you'll be properly starting work on this. Your calls haven't been returned though, and if you have to hear the forced brightness of Quinn's voicemail message again anytime soon, you're not entirely sure that your phone will survive the frustration.

You've already thrown it across the room once today.

You're only lucky that your aim was off and it hit the back of the sofa instead of the wall that you were so diligently shooting for. It's just ridiculous. You can't proceed with anything until you've spoken to Quinn, and you can't speak to her until she returns at least one of your many calls.

You decide to try again on a whim. Like one final flourish before you call it all quits and head back to Holly with nothing to show for yourself except one briefly laid down interview and a few shots of Quinn's impressive speech giving. You steel yourself for the four ring burst before cut out and you're therefore entirely unprepared when it answers after just the first ring.

You hear her speak, but you're so surprised you don't reply until she speaks again:

"If this is a prank call you're going to have to work a little harder; I can barely even hear you breathing."

"Quinn?" You ask, even though you know her voice enough already to know that the tight cut tones are most definitely hers.

"It is. And this is?"

It bothers you that she hasn't saved your number to her phone book already, but when you consider every other way she's bothered you this weekend, it doesn't seem such a big deal.

You tell her it's Brittany, and straight away she launches into a great apologetic outpouring of words for not returning your calls or at least sending a text.

"You wouldn't believe how crazy it got around here," she adds on at the end, "I haven't had time to focus on anything other than keeping my sanity intact."

She's aroused your curiosity and you ask if everything went okay with the convention, yet she assures you quickly that it was fine so you can only assume the craziness which kept her away from her phone was personal. It's not your place to ask so you don't. Before you have the chance to edge the direction of the conversation towards making a time to get together tomorrow to arrange your schedules, she's speaking again, "What are you doing right now, Brittany?"

"Laying on the couch, stroking my cat and talking to you," you answer literally. "Why?"

"How about I take you out to dinner to make up for missing all of your calls?"

You look to the clock and it isn't too late. You've showered today already so it really would just be a case of throwing some clothes on and running a brush through your hair, and you are yet to find yourself food for the evening. You're hesitating though, because there's something about jumping to her beck and call that doesn't sit quite right with you. She's spent all weekend blowing you off; you'd like to blow her off just once in return.

Your pause is audible and she jumps right back in to convince you.

"Come on, say yes," she implores, "I know of an excellent new seafood place, just opened, that does a gumbo shrimp cocktail I've heard is to die for. Do you like shrimp?"

You love shrimp and she had you at cocktail.

You decide you can blow her off another time as you give her your address, and agree to meet her out front in thirty minutes. You don't even have to worry about splitting the bill for all the overpriced shrimp you're sure you're about to eat, because this is a professional outing and you'll be filing everything away in the column marked expenses.

...

It had taken you less than twenty minutes to pull on a pair of tight black jeans, match them with a loosely slung off the shoulder white shirt, step into a pair of not-too-high black stilettos and paint your eyelashes thick with mascara. The lip gloss you'd added as you walked out of the door, and your hair had settled into lightly tousled curls without you even needing to tease it with a brush. You felt casual and yet classy, and you were glad to note that when you'd slid into the passenger seat of Quinn's flashy little red sports car, she was also dressed down and mostly casual for the occasion.

Her pants are neatly tailored and not dipped in denim, but aside from that, she looks just as comfortable as you feel.

The dinner so far has been a resounding success. She apologised again and with such frequency for blowing you off the last couple of days that you feel like you've forgiven her a thousand times already. She still hasn't alluded to the reasoning behind it, but she's touched on the subject enough that you've gotten the feeling she wants to share with you.

For your part you've kept it friendly and professional. You've let loose some anecdotes about your days in high school and how you ended up passing up on a dancing scholarship to move out here to LA instead and seek a career in front of the camera. You've shared a little about Sam and how it is he's your best friend ever and also your cameraman. Mostly though, you've been trying your hardest to get some solid information on Quinn herself and to get her to commit to something like a timetable, or a schedule, or a vague diary of events for your upcoming time together.

While waiting for dessert you try again. Fixing her with your serious stare, you tell her that you really do need to have something to offer to Holly in your morning meeting tomorrow and that you also really need to give Sam some sort of heads up for the week ahead and when you'll be filming.

She looks like she wants to stall again and it's all you can do not to sigh out loud in frustration.

"Seriously Quinn," you say, no nonsense allowed in your tone, "if you don't want to do this, that's fine, okay? I can call Holly, tell her the whole deal's off."

"No!" Her reply is rushed and shouted out and it shocks you a little. You really didn't realise this meant so much to her. "Look," she continues, the volume of her voice returning to conversational levels, "I get I'm not being very helpful here, Brittany, and I understand you have people counting on you, but can you just give me a couple more days to get my stuff together before you bail out on me?"

Your head is telling you no; that this is looking likely to turn into one long headache after another, but your instincts overrule your logic and you're nodding before you have a chance to say anything out loud.

"I promise," she starts up again, "that I'm not normally this all over the place, it's just…" her eyes drop to the table and her fingers play with the cutlery that's left on the table top. When she meets your gaze again her eyes are deep and soulful and you guess that the time for her to share has now arrived. "Can I trust you, Brittany?" she asks, and you say yes to her because you're sure that she can. You may be a video journalist, this may be your job, but you're a person first, and an honourable person at that.

She takes a second, looking down at her napkin again before she speaks.

"You remember Santana, right, from the other day at the convention?"

"Of course I do," you answer quickly.

"She didn't show up on Saturday afternoon to give her speech and she hasn't been home since. Her dad is going nuts and I'm bearing the full brunt of it. I swear I'm going to kill her when I eventually track her down."

The fact that Santana is missing seems to worry you a whole lot more than it worries Quinn, and you have to ask, "Aren't you concerned?"

"For Santana?"

You nod your head and she laughs in reply, "I'll tell you now Brittany, that being concerned for Santana Lopez gets you absolutely nowhere and it gets you there fast. Don't worry yourself, she'll be fine."

She says it like she truly believes it and you really want to worry less.

The conversation falters when the waiter arrives with your slice of chocolate fudge cake, but as soon as you've dug your spoon into the sponge she starts talking again.

"I imagine I sound like a complete bitch to you, right?"

You shake your head no this time because your mouth is too full of cake to answer.

"I love Santana, I do," she continues, "she's probably my best friend in the whole world, but she's the hardest person to care for I've ever met in my life. I'm sure she's out partying hard right now, she'll keep going until the fun stops and then she'll come home."

You stop eating cake.

You don't feel like it anymore.

"But what if she's not okay?" you ask. "Have you tried calling her?"

"I'd bet even more times that you've tried calling me this weekend."

You watch her sip at her coffee the waiter's brought over for her, and you honestly do forgive her now for ignoring all of your calls. She's worried about Santana even if she won't admit to it.

Not much else is really said before she signals for the check and you insist on charging it to your MTV expenses account. It still gives you a little thrill every time you use it and you're glad when doesn't fight you; she just quirks an eyebrow and you smile in return

"I've enjoyed this," she says as she stands from the table, and you return the compliment with ease. It has in actual fact been a pleasant evening. Quinn is easy to talk to and the fact that you're the same age means most of your shared stories had a common theme running through them. You expect this to now be the end of the night.

She'll drive you home, you'll offer farewells from the sidewalk as she drives away, and then you'll hopefully hear from her in a couple of days and you'll be able to finally move forward with all of your working arrangements.

Her cell-phone begins to ring though almost as soon as she's sat back behind the steering wheel of her car, and you wonder from the look on her face if it's Santana calling. As if you just know. A knowledge that is confirmed when you hear her shouted tones coming out loud and proud through the hearing part of Quinn's phone. You can almost make out what she's saying yourself, and when Quinn speaks it just confirms your overheard gist.

"No, Santana, I do not want to party." Followed by, "no", and then, "no", and finally, "just tell me where you are and I'll come and pick you up."

...

The ride to the club had been filled with nothing but curses, and when you'd arrived, all that Quinn said to you was, "If anyone looks at you funny, just act like we're together, okay?"

It had seemed trivial on the outside. Once you're inside you understand what she means.

You're used to going to clubs, you've been going to them to dance since you'd first sprouted that few extra inches your sophomore year and you've been getting away with drinking in them ever since your boobs had caught up to match. This is different though. The energy here isn't quite like any you're used to and you're not sure you like it. Everything is too close and too tight and you're fighting the feeling of suffocation as bodies press against you from all sides. You feel unseen touches as they glide across your skin. You shiver.

When Quinn reaches for your hand you don't stop her, in fact you probably send her a smile of gratitude, and you follow along gladly as she pulls you through the crowd. She heads for an elevator set off into one of the corners and the guy in uniform who punches a code into the wall for her sends you the sort of look that only adds to your chills.

You don't breathe until you're inside of the elevator, and even then you wait until the doors have fully closed before you exhale.

"Where are we Quinn?" you ask, and you know your nerves are showing because your words come out both whispered and tense.

"Believe it or not," she replies, "one of the most exclusive underground clubs in Los Angeles,"

You instantly believe it. You didn't have any idea this place was here, and like you said, you go clubbing a lot.

"Does everyone who comes here always look so… _mean_?"

The glance she gives you in response does nothing to reassure you even though she's attempting to cover it over with a smile. "They're not mean, Brittany," she says pointedly, "they're just desperate."

You don't ask for what though. You remember the way the man in uniform had leered at you; you're pretty sure you can work it out for yourself. It makes you wonder what on earth Santana could possibly be doing here. None of the conclusions you're coming to are making you happy though and you're glad when Quinn speaks again so you can stop thinking them through. She begins to say something about this part of the club being strictly VIP, and words about privacy, and you have to cut her off, "I told you Quinn, you can trust me. Nothing happening here is on the record."

Her eyes appraise you before she smiles again softly. She steps forward and links her arm lightly through yours, "I really hope so," she says, "because things are about to get crazy."

...

She wasn't lying.

Once the elevator had descended down to the basement floor, the doors had slid open and you'd been presented with a vision that your mind couldn't immediately process. There were beats and there were bodies, and the baseline of whatever track was thumping so furiously through the speakers had you feeling as though your soul was set on fire and you wanted only to dance. Yet there was also something alien here; that feeling from upstairs, that cloying desperation, was darker down beneath the ground and not one person you could see dancing was doing it with a smile.

When you danced you did it with joy. Even when your heels split and your toes blistered and you couldn't walk comfortably for days afterward, dance has always been about an expression of joy for you. It's your happy place.

There is nothing happy here.

You feel your body reacting to the environment and you're glad when Quinn notices and pulls you just a little touch closer; her arm tightening through yours, her eyes looking to you as if to ask if you're okay. You offer a slight shrug; you don't want to stay any longer than you have to but you know that you're here for a reason. She seems to accept that, and before you know it you're being dragged through another assortment of bodies, and more than one hand finds its way to try and trace the places where your shirt hangs loose from your skin. Quinn doesn't pause long enough for anyone to find purchase though, and you really only slow down when you reach the bar.

You don't hear what she's saying to the guy there, but he does gesture his thumb off to the left and that seems to be enough to satisfy Quinn's inquiry.

To the left appears to be a black curtain, and behind that curtain which Quinn pushes aside and pulls you through is another small room, lined with large leather sofas and sporadically placed tables. There's a small bar and two doors which you assume lead to bathrooms, but aside from that there's nothing much to see.

It's what you tell yourself as you do see.

Your eyes widen even as you want to close them and you know this image is going to be burned bright onto your retinas forever. Because it's Santana. But it's not just Santana. Even though the sight of her in that tight black dress which barely graces the top of her thighs would be enough to burn your retinas on any occasion, on this occasion your focus is being forced to zero in instead on what she's doing to the person she has pinned up against the back wall.

Her lips are attacking their neck, her right hand is up and massaging their breast and her left hand… Well, the girl against the wall has a skirt on. It's so fucking hot and you know you shouldn't be seeing this. You don't _want_ to see this. Regardless of your body's reaction, your mind is screaming at you to look away.

"Well, it looks like we've missed the tears," you hear Quinn say at your side and it's enough to rip your attention away from the scene in front of you. You dip your eyebrows to show you don't understand what she's saying and she elaborates further, "She drinks, she cries, she wants to fuck. Always in that order."

She starts walking forward and your linked arms force you to follow.

"This is the part where it might get crazy."

Her words are quiet and you barely hear them; you're not even sure if they were meant for you or if she was just trying to prepare herself. Her next ones come out louder though and they're directed firmly at Santana, "Feeding time's over S, put the skanky-snack down now so we can get you back to the pound."

The skanky-snack seems to hear, even as Santana doesn't, because she's looking up and taking notice of you and Quinn, and immediately her hands are trying to peel Santana's hands off of her body. You see her lips move but you don't hear her words, yet whatever they are they give her enough room to start readjusting her clothing back into some sort of respectability.

As Santana starts turning around you expect the worst. The tightening of Quinn's arm around yours clues you in on the fact that she probably expects the same.

Her eyes are more empty than angry though as they first try and hold focus on Quinn and her words sound tired as opposed to the sort that would be seeking to start a fight, "Took your time Q," she says, "thought you'd forgotten me."

"I was trying to and then you called."

She looks as if she's going to smile. As if she's just lining up the perfect insult to direct back at Quinn, when her gaze jumps to the side and lands squarely on you.

You see the breath taken. You watch as her eyes widen.

"What the actual fuck?" Her eyes are speeding back and forth between the two of you and she's already halved the distance between yourself and the back wall. She starts to gesticulate wildly with her hands the closer she gets, and her speech, though slurred, is punctuated with words which you assume by the sound of them are Spanish in origin.

You don't know what to do.

You wish you could be anywhere but here, yet you are here and you're going to have to do something other than stand mute on the sidelines. You press down the feeling of nausea in your stomach that always threatens to rise when you're confronted with conflict and you step forward, "It's okay," you offer her, "I'm not going to say anything about what I've seen."

The instant her eyes turn and fix on you, you know you've made an error.

"Excuse me?" She sneers, stepping up into your personal space, "'What you've seen'? You haven't fucking _seen_ anything, you gets me, Blondie?"

Gets her? You're practically breathing her in. She's that close, you can see the way her pupils have widened to darken her eyes and you could, if you so wished, count each and every one of the eyelashes that are framing the darkness.

You're sure that Blondie was meant as a lame attempt at an insult, and you're sure that this is all meant to be intimidating, but the nausea is no longer the founding force in your stomach and you can't help but keep your voice soft as you answer her with a simple shrugged out, _okay_.

You're not scared of her, and you can see it confuses her. Her eyes scrunch up a little before she turns her head slowly to look back towards Quinn, "Can we get out of here now?" she asks quietly.

And just like that all of the fight leaves her body.

...

In the time it's taken you all to walk back to the car, Santana hasn't spoken once. You and Quinn had flanked her on either side and she'd allowed you to both link an arm through hers as you led her from the club and back to where you'd parked the car. For a moment it looked as though she was going to protest when told to fold her ass into the back seat, but that would've broken her vow of silence, and it's a vow she seems serious about keeping.

You're driving back towards Quinn's house now, and you feel like someone should say something, yet you're clueless as to what that something should be so you settle for staying silent also.

It's Quinn who breaks first, turning her head to look at you before speaking quietly, "I'm so sorry about all of this," her gaze flicks back to the road but she carries on talking, "I completely understand if you really do want to pull the plug on the whole project; none of this has been very professional."

You think to tell her that you honestly don't have the power to pull plugs, but it seems irrelevant to what she's really saying. You shoot her a smile instead and choose your words gently, "It's okay," you assure her, "we're not even officially on the clock so none of this is work related. We'll just call it a night out among…"

"Friends?"

She says what you didn't want to make the presumption to say, and you nod your agreement. "Sure, I think we can say friends."

You've bonded over dinner and the intervening crisis, and while you're not going to be swapping friendship bracelets with her anytime soon, you can say that you've enjoyed her company. You also appreciate the way she guarded your side in the club, and you think it's all kinds of cute the way she cares about Santana without admitting just how far that caring stretches.

You think you'd like a friend like Quinn.

As for Santana, you glance behind your seat now to see that she's fallen asleep to the rhythm of the tyres passing over the road. She's still wearing that ridiculously small black dress and you feel that perhaps your stoicism should be rewarded when you manage to not spend the entirety of the journey home just gazing at her legs. Or at the swell of her breast beneath tight fabric. Or even at the way her dark hair is shining so brightly when set against the contrast of Quinn's white leather interiors. Even in this state, you know that you're finding her beautiful, and it concerns you just a little.

You're a big girl. You know how to have fun and you've had a lot of fun.

The first time you'd seen Santana, you'd thought of the fun of Easter and Christmas wrapped up in one. She was beautiful and she was fierce and it had amused your mind to think to calm her. By the end of that first day you'd just wanted to know how to make her smile. And now, three days forward, it doesn't really feel like fun anymore.

There is, without any doubt, something about her that is drawing you in, yet as you look at her now, as you notice the smudge of the makeup about her eyes and the general dishevelment on display before you, as you remember where she was and what it was she was doing, or the way she snarled her words at Quinn…

"Brittany?"

Your name brings your eyes away from Santana and you return your attention to Quinn as she begins to speak again, "I want to get Santana back to mine, then I'll either drive you home once she's settled down or call you a cab, is that okay?"

You tell her it's fine. She looks so tired you'd probably agree to anything to ease the load.

It also gives you a first chance to see where she lives and you're more than interested. You're going to be spending an awful lot of time with her over the next couple of months and even with the strained circumstance that has brought you here tonight, you're excited to see her home environment.

You're not disappointed.

From outside, the apartment block doesn't really look all that special, but as soon as you'd been driven into the underground parking bay you'd known that this place was probably just as exclusive as the club you'd not long ago left. For a start there's an entry system just to get in the car-park and then every door you approach has a man waiting in uniform whose sole purpose is to open them up for you. The elevators have an opulence about them you've only really seen in magazines and movies before, and as for the actual apartment, you think it's probably so far past opulent that they don't have a word for it.

You're not poor yourself, not by a long stretch of the imagination, but this place smells like filthy rich and it's an aroma you're not really used to.

You must be making it obvious because you're jolted from your thoughts by Quinn's wry sounding laugh and her quickly quipped words, "You like what you see, huh?"

Like it? You love it.

You tell her it's beautiful and she tells you it's not hers.

"It's my parents," she says, "they have the big house up in the Hills, but they like to keep an apartment in the city as well."

You'd like to ask her more but she's still hanging on to a despondent Santana and you guess that now is probably not the time. You're prepared to just stand here and wait while she deals with what she needs to deal with, but she motions with her head as she starts leading Santana down the hallway and you have no choice but to follow.

You listen to the quiet words she's speaking into Santana's ear as you walk, but you can't make much out beyond _spare room _and _phone calls _and a quite firmly spoken, _We'll deal with all that tomorrow._

You stop at the doorway because entering the bedroom seems like a boundary you shouldn't cross. Even if it's only a spare room, it's a spare room with a bed and that to you has always meant something like privacy.

Quinn turns to you though once she's seated Santana on the bed in the middle of the room, and you notice again just how tired she looks, how thoroughly exhausted.

"I have some calls to make, Brittany; I won't be long but…"

She looks back down at Santana and you know what she's asking. She wants you to stay, to keep watch while she no doubt calls all the people who would've been worried over Santana's three day disappearance.

You want to say no. You want to say yes.

The mistake is made when you glance across at the bed and see Santana staring back at you. She looks wrecked, as if she's barely being held together by the tightness of her dress, and you know then that you won't be moving.

You offer Quinn a tight nod to tell her you've understood what it is she's asking of you and then it's just you, standing solitary in the room, with Santana sat solitary before you.

You're not sure what to say, or even if you're meant to say anything. Her eyes are still on you though and you feel the tension rising as the time passes by silent. It's only when her eyes drop to the carpet by your feet that you feel steady enough to say something.

Again you fight back the question of okay which you so desperately want to ask her, and you instead ask if there's anything she needs. You offer to fetch a glass of water, maybe a snack, but she just shakes her head and mumbles something about feeling sick.

You wouldn't have known how to get her any of those things if she had said yes so you're relieved when she refuses your offer.

"I just want to sleep," she says, slightly louder than the mumble of a moment ago. "Would you mind…" She points across the room towards an ornate dresser and you guess that she's asking you to find her something to change into. "There's some shorts and stuff in the second drawer down."

You open the second drawer and sure enough there's a small selection of vests and shorts inside, so you pick the first combination that comes to hand before turning back to her.

"Do you want me to," you say, about to ask if you should leave the room while she changes, but she's already sliding the straps of her dress down from her shoulders and you can't finish your thoughts in this instant, let alone your words.

You're staring but not staring. Your mind is screaming at your eyes to avert, yet all you manage are brief flickers away before your gaze returns to watch the slow reveal in front of you.

She looks up at you when the dress drops to the floor and pools around her feet and you have the good grace to flush before her. You were looking, you got caught. The heat that floods your cheeks beneath her gaze seems like a fair punishment.

She holds her hand out to you next, and just for a minute, the smallest briefest fraction of a second, you imagine that she's calling you towards her.

Your feet want to move her way, they want to dance across the floor and take her hands in yours again and not let go so soon this time.

Yet you don't.

You instead hold out the vest and shorts and try not to get caught staring again as she does the slow reveal in reverse; her lacy black bra being covered by the plain white vest, and her legs being caressed by her shorts as she pulls them up around her waist.

She throws back the cover on the bed and you assume that now would be the right time to leave the room. You step forward as she settles down and you lick your lips to bring back some of the moisture you'd lost when watching her both undress and dress again, "I'm gonna leave you to it," you say, "I'll let Quinn know you're sleeping."

"Wait, Brittany," she asks. So you do.

Her eyes are losing focus now, you can see the same kind of exhaustion running through her that you saw in Quinn, yet this is different also. There's something else about her, something further away and not quite there. You step forward without thinking, getting closer to the bed as she lies down and turns her head away from you.

"I watched you," you hear her say, but you have no understanding of what it is she means.

"You watched me?"

It takes a second for her to answer and you wonder if she's already given in to passing out.

She turns her head again though and there's the smallest, barely there unless you're looking for it, lift to the corner of her lips. "I watched your show."

You know you're smiling in return.

You weren't even aware that you wanted her to watch you, you hadn't even considered the possibility that she would hunker down in front of a computer screen to search for you. Hearing that she has though, knowing that sometime during her missing hours of the last weekend she'd somehow managed to seek you out, pleases you more than you could've imagined.

Your voice is shy when you ask her what she thought, because more than the unknown desire for her to watch, is the absolute desire for her to like.

Again she doesn't answer straight away, yet you know by the way that the slight lift to her lips has hitched up even higher and by the way her eyes are shining at you beneath her hedonistically induced fog, that she does have something more to say. She's just drawing it out. She's drawing you in again.

In the instant you think you can't take it anymore, just as you're about to press her into answering your question sooner rather than later, she ends your suspense.

"Genius," she breathes out, teetering on the edge of a soft chuckle. "Sheer genius."

You want more. You want to know why and how. Like, maybe she's talking about Lord Tubbington, or perhaps she's particularly praising your inventive use of fondue as an interesting and diverse conversation starter. You don't know and she's not saying any more. Her head turns away again, and she pulls her body over to follow, leaving you only with a view of her back and a disbelieving grin plastered across your face.

You've had one hell of a night.

You've seen things you didn't necessarily want to see and you've learnt things you're sure it's not your place to know. But still.

As you step away and pull the door slowly to closed, you offer up a quiet but firm _thank-you_ into the stillness of the room.

It doesn't matter what you've seen and it doesn't matter what you know.

She watched you and she called you a genius.

And honestly, all that you really want to see, or to know, is her.

...


	3. You smile I smile

You're sitting in Holly's office, halfway through your morning meeting, when your phone beeps to alert you of a new text message. You'd meant to switch it over to vibrate-only when you'd entered the imposing brown building of the MTV headquarters on Colorado Avenue, yet you'd been too distracted by the fact you were running late to remember the plan. The noise makes Holly pause mid-sentence and you apologise with your eyes as you attempt to discreetly remove your phone from your pocket so you can switch the alerts to silent.

The meeting isn't going particularly well as it is and you really could've done without anything else drawing attention to how unprofessional you feel right now. It isn't your fault that Quinn has proved to be hard to pin down over the course of the last few days, yet this is your job and you feel some sense of responsibility for the fact that you have nothing to offer either Holly or Sam in the way of firm plans.

Sam had only smiled when you shared the news. He's used to the way you operate, he knows enough to know that you sometimes pull your best work out of the bag when it seems as though things might be falling apart, so the slight delay in getting started doesn't seem to phase him too badly.

Holly is a different story. When you entered her office she'd been a big old bundle of enthused excitement and she'd practically danced around the desk to greet you; embracing you around the shoulders before pulling back and offering Sam a trademark high-five.

"My favourite team is finally here!"

You're sure that she says it to each of the crews who work under her direction, but every time she does say it, it fills you full of pride. You love having Holly as a boss and ever since you've been under her charge at MTV you've wanted to impress her. It hurt a little to tell her that her favourite team had nothing to report. You tried to drag out the importance of the tape Sam had managed to procure at the conference and you make a big deal about how photogenic and camera-perfect Quinn is going to be, but neither of those points have prevented the enthusiasm from slipping from Holly's face as you admit just how empty your schedule still sits.

It makes you feel doubly bad when your phone beeps again before you've even properly edged it out of the too tight top pocket of your denim jacket. You mouth _sorry_ across the desk to Holly, and you press hard on the button that will silence the phone without averting your eyes to learn who it is that wants your attention at 9am on a Tuesday morning.

You settle back into your chair and wait for Holly's questions to start again. You're trying to be upfront with her, you're trying so hard to be the consummate professional, but you made a promise to Quinn last night and you're trying to honour that too. It's easy to admit to dinner when Holly asks in her overly exasperated tone if you've even seen Quinn since the convention opener on Friday, but when she'd begun to ask for your overall take on the girl it became a lot harder to formulate your words.

She's looking at you again now and you're sure you must've missed a question.

You're about to apologise, to ask her to repeat what she'd said, when her frown is replaced by a small and sly grin, "I think I might just have an idea to speed things along," she announces. "Tell me what you know about Rachel Berry, Britts?"

You don't answer because you don't think you've ever heard that name, but Sam speaks up from your side, "That's who Tina's team's following, right?"

"Sure is, Hotstuff," Holly replies, "and early reports say it's looking like Team Chang for the win."

She shoots you both a double thumbs up, yet you just look back confused.

"Oh come on, guys and gals," she mock sighs, "do neither of you follow the politics of the people you're working with?"

You look at Sam, Sam looks back at you.

"Tina and Mike are working with Rachel Berry, the absolute darling of the west coast democrats?" she waits to see if either of you show signs of recognition, but you're still pretty certain that it's a name you've not heard of. Sam isn't jumping in to add anything either so she just continues on, "Her dad is Hiram Berry, the incumbent US Senator for our glorious state of California?"

You really wish you paid more attention to the politics part of the daily newspapers.

She shakes her head as if bemused by your lack of knowledge when it comes to local politics, but you're from Ohio. You refuse to feel too bad about not knowing who the senators are in your new home state, even if you have lived out here for close to two years.

The speech Holly launches into next; filling you in on who Hiram Berry is, what Hiram Berry stands for and how wonderfully delightful Hiram Berry is in most things he does, leads you to believe pretty quickly that you know who she'll be voting for come election day. She throws herself into one of her arts impassioned monologues, and you shoot Sam a smile as you settle back in your chair and wait for her to finish. It's one of your favourite things to watch Holly when she gets excited for something, and nothing gets her more excited than the arts.

It seems that Hiram Berry is a huge supporter of all things artistic, and when Holly tells you that before becoming a senator he ran his own theatre production company with his partner Leroy, you feel a slight pang of jealousy towards your rival team. Mike and Tina are awesome, you've become firm friends with them ever since you first joined the LA branch of the MTV family, yet the fact they get the arts interested Berry's to follow while you get the Fabray's doesn't seem all that fair. Over the weekend you googled further into the family history, so you're well aware that Russell Fabray is a super successful business mogul and that his wife Judy, Quinn's mom, is some hotshot figurehead within the Concerned Women of America group. You're not at all sure what they're so concerned about, but it has its own group so you only imagine that it's something important. Either way, compared to the arts, you agree that it's an early win for Team Chang.

Holly rounds up her ode to all things artistic by informing you that she's met Rachel Berry at several of the events she's attended in the past while supporting Hiram's political campaigns, and that she remembers quite clearly the long running rivalry between her and Quinn Fabray.

That sparks your interest. You remember when Sam had originally botched the brief outlining this upcoming project and you remember when you'd thought it was a battle between two bands. You lean forward in your chair and wet your lips before you speak, "There's that big debate planned right, between Quinn and the other girl?"

Holly looks pleased that you remembered and she also leans slightly forward in her chair before she answers you. "Not just any old debate, chica," she says, a smile dancing playfully across her lips, "this is gonna be like Death Match 2012."

"Because their dads are against each other?" you ask, frowning.

"No, because _they're_ against each other; not just now, but apparently all through high school. Rachel's been telling Tina and Mike all about it," she tells you. "It's gonna make a really awesome backdrop to the feature."

"Wait, they went to high school together?"

"They sure did," she answers, clicking her fingers as she points across at you. "You can choose your zip code Britt, but you can't choose who your neighbours are."

You nod sagely, storing the wisdom away for a future date.

"But how does that help us with Quinn?" Sam asks from his seat at your side. "If Brittany can't get her to share her schedule sometime soon, there's not going to be a feature to backdrop."

"You gotta have faith, Sammy-Boy," she simply replies, "I said I had an idea, right?"

"Right."

"And have I ever let you down?"

You both shake your heads no, because Holly may be all sorts of eccentric, but when it comes to business, she's one of the best. It was her who had originally brought you to the attention of those high up enough to make decisions at MTV, and you'll be forever grateful for all of the belief she's shown in you since. "The way I'm seeing it," she starts up again, "Brittany here just needs to get Quinn's interest a little more aroused and she'll be _begging_ you both for screen time."

"You want me to arouse her?"

"The gossip tree tells me that would possibly work too," Holly manages to get out around a short burst of laughter, "but no, on this occasion I'm talking about the non-X-rated option."

You're glad, because as nice and as pretty as Quinn is, she's not high on the list of people you wish to arouse. That list consists of one, and you're currently trying really hard not to think about it.

Or her.

That one who makes up the whole of your list.

You flick your eyes back up to Holly as she carries on explaining the details of her brilliant plan. You're to dangle Rachel Berry's name out before Quinn the next time you talk to her, you're to wholly exaggerate how much access the other team have to her, and you're to mention the confidence she's spoken of in beating Quinn at their upcoming face off. Holly seems sure that this will be all you need to do to have Quinn eating out of the palm of your hand.

"Trust me guys," she offers finally as she ushers you up and out of her office. "Everyone has an angle to be worked, you just gotta find out what it is."

…

After the meeting with Holly concluded, you were able to check your phone to seek the source of the text messages you had to earlier ignore. Both of them just so happened to be from Quinn, and both of them demanded your immediate attention. The first asking you to call as soon as you were free, and the second, sent just four minutes later, enquiring as to why you hadn't called already. There were also three missed calls from her that you hadn't been alerted to once your phone had been switched over to silent.

You wait until you're back at your apartment to call her, and even then, you spend a good amount of time feeding and fussing over Lord Tubbington before you pick up your phone and click on her number. It's not that you're not keen to work with her; you like her, you do, and you know the importance of making arrangements, but there's just something about the way she _demands_ your attention that causes you to hang back.

It doesn't seem to phase her when you do eventually return her call, and she's all polite and niceness when she invites you back over to her place to join her for lunch.

"I'm using my father's office while I'm staying here," she informs you, "I have all of my upcoming events listed on the calendar on my desk and I promise to let you take a look if you'll agree to come eat with me again."

You accept, of course, and you also call Holly on your way over to inform her of the new development. She tells you she thinks you should still use the Berry angle, just to gauge a reaction, and you're sat here now, toying with the Caesar salad Quinn has served up to you for lunch, formulating the best way to open the topic of conversation. So far you're back to swapping anecdotes about your past, and you're glad when she finally puts her fork down and offers to take you back to look at the office.

The office you can't stop your thoughts from wandering away from when you enter the hallway again. You also can't help the way your eyes fall on the closed door of the spare bedroom as you walk slowly by. You want to ask if Santana is still inside. You want to open the door and see for yourself.

If Quinn notices your internal musings she doesn't comment, she simply waits for you to catch her up and opens the door two down from where you've been lingering. "This," she says, with a trace of grandeur creeping into her voice, "is my Father's office. It's my favourite room in this whole place."

You take in the dark panelled walls and the books piled high on every surface. There are photos of people you don't recognise adorning the desk, and you step nearer to take a closer look. "Are these your family?" you ask, pointing at one where you're sure you can see Quinn's face staring back at you.

"Yeah, that was my graduation night. I made valedictorian, it was quite a big deal."

"Oh. Congratulations," you tell her, not quite sure how you make a valedictorian. "I went for dinner with Sam's family when we graduated; we didn't have to make anything."

She looks confused and you seek to sooth her, "We're from Ohio though, and we probably do things all different out there. I'm sure your valedictorian was totally awesome."

She doesn't comment, she just points out another photo and asks if you recognise who it is standing next to her father. He looks somewhat familiar, but you're not certain enough to offer up names.

She wait's a beat before declaring proudly, "I know it's not a great shot, but that's Dick Cheney."

You feel like you should say something. You feel like you should know who that is.

You're saved from admitting otherwise, when someone speaks behind you.

"Cheney's never been much of a great shot, Q, you know that."

You watch the grimace slide across Quinn's features and it's easy for you to turn away from her. You hadn't heard Santana enter the room, you weren't even sure that she was still here, but now you do know and now you want to see her.

Her eyes are fixed on Quinn and she looks like crap, yet this is already the best part of your day. When her eyes turn to you it gets even better. She doesn't smile, yet she isn't snarling, and you'll gladly call it progress.

"Hey," you say.

She doesn't answer. She runs her gaze up and down your body again, much like the first time you met, before speaking again to Quinn, "Did she stay the night?"

"Would it bother you if she had?"

The silent seconds as they stare each other down feels like an eternity. You're waiting to hear the answer just as much as Quinn is, and even more so when Santana's eyes return to yours. You can't read their expression, but you know that she's talking to you. That she's asking you something.

"I didn't stay. I just came for lunch."

It seems important that you tell her that, and when she smiles, you smile.

When Quinn speaks again you lose the smile. Her voice has developed a harsh edge to it and she aims all of her sharpness in Santana's direction, "Your abuela's been calling non-stop since dawn; I didn't have the heart to tell her where I found you, but she knows that you're here."

"Really? And how the fuck did she know that, Quinn?"

"We were worried," Quinn says, "it was _three_ days Santana; not one call. Of course I let her know you're here."

"Because you all care so damn much, right?" Santana spits out.

You see that muscle in her jaw working and you know enough already to know that she's holding herself back. She's glaring at Quinn, absolutely glaring, and you now understand completely what the phrase _staring daggers_ means.

It makes it all the more surprising when Quinn laughs at your side. It's a gentle laugh, soft in spirit, yet it jars at your ears and leaves you frowning in her direction. "Are you _ever _going to get over yourself Santana?" she asks, complete with an over exaggerated sigh. "Everybody loves you, everybody cares about you. You just can't keep doing this; we have a reputation to uphold, all of us, and when you-"

"Screw this."

Santana turns and leaves just as sudden as she had entered, and you know you're still wearing your frown when Quinn turns back your way. You just wish you understood the dynamic here. It's obvious that there's something less than friendly between Quinn and Santana, and yet you're also sure that Quinn cares a whole lot more for Santana than she likes to let on. When you remember their exchange the first time you had met them both and the obvious insinuation that they'd slept together at least once, it's enough to make your head hurt.

"You always seem to catch us at our worst," Quinn says, preventing the onslaught of awkward silence, "I promise it's not always like this."

"You don't seem to really like each other very much," you reply honestly, "Sam and I are best friends and we never fight like that."

She considers you a long moment before answering, "We just have a lot of history. If we're not at each other's throats, then we're…" She leaves the sentence hanging in the air, and you don't care enough to catch it. Or you do care, you just don't want to follow her words to their natural conclusion. "You'll get used to us Brittany, everybody does."

It's the last either of you mention Santana for the rest of the afternoon. Quinn keeps to her word and shares with you all of the pages in her appointment diary for the next two weeks and you're happy to note down everything you think is relevant. You're gonna take the schedule back to Holly and get her ideas for what she thinks the best events to cover are; you know already that you'll most likely be covering the upcoming speech on campus at UCLA, and you're pretty certain that Holly will want you to attend the benefit Quinn's father is throwing this coming Saturday at his house in The Hills. Other than that you'll mostly be doing what you've done today, only Sam will be with you a lot of the time and it'll all be captured on camera. The idea is that after two weeks, MTV will start airing half hour shows featuring Quinn and Rachel Berry, and after their debate, held on the same weekend that their father's debate each other, the public will phone in and decide which team has Rocked the Vote.

You're yet to find time to quiz Quinn on her past history with Rachel Berry amongst finalising your appointments for the upcoming days, and before you know it she's excusing herself and saying that she has to visit with her parents this evening and that time is really getting on.

Again she tells you that she's enjoyed her time with you and again you agree. The whole exchange you witnessed between her and Santana had been weird, yet that aside, she's been nothing but friendly to you. She offers to call you a cab but you inform her that you rode over on your scooter today.

"Your scooter," she questions, and you can tell by her look that she doesn't know whether to believe you or not.

"Sure," you confirm, "I left my car back in Lima, and it's always sunny here, so."

She accepts that and she's all smiles again as she walks you to the door. It's a surprise when she pulls you in for a quick hug, but you're a hugger and you're happy to hug her back.

"We really are going to be great friends Brittany, I can tell already."

You confirm with a smile that you'll see her tomorrow, and as you leave you're already pulling your phone from your pocket so as you can call through your update to Holly. It finally feels as if you're getting somewhere with this, and Rachel Berry or not, you're sure that Quinn is fully onboard and ready to really start working with you.

…

You head over to Sam's after speaking to Holly and bring him up to speed on all the new information you have regarding Quinn, her schedule, and what your schedule is now likely to be for the upcoming weeks. Sam only really needs to be about when something needs filming, but he talks everything over with you anyway, discussing your ideas for how best to highlight Quinn's work for her father's campaign and also how best to get your audience to really connect with her. It may be an assumption that whoever performs best in the debate will win the MTV phone in poll as well, but you know that in actual fact it comes down to a popularity contest; how Quinn comes across to the audience in the weeks preceding the final event will determine if she wins or not.

You're not too worried. You haven't had the chance to catch up with Mike and Tina yet so you have no idea how tough the competition is, but you have seen the scenes that Sam has already shot, and you were right about Quinn and the camera. It absolutely adores her. You know that the public will no doubt do the same.

It's all put you in an exceptionally good mood.

After Sam's, you swing by the grocery store and pick up some fresh chicken to boil up for Lord Tubbington and when you get home you speak to your Mom on the phone, skype with your younger sister, cook yourself a quick dinner, and even manage to clean the dishes after. It's only 10pm and you're already way ahead of yourself for the evening.

You're considering a long bath and a book when your phone rings, and the unknown number which lights up the screen means you stand a little longer than normal listening to L'il Wayne blast out your ring-tone before you hit the answer button. You've spoken to everyone you normally speak to in an evening. You're not expecting a call.

Once you do lift the phone to your ear and you hear her voice, it takes everything you have to not just drop it back to the table.

It's _her_. Santana.

You listen as she says _Hello, _as she says, _Brittany? _And you smile into the handset as you confirm that it is. You're about to ask what is she wants you for, when her words rush to fill your ear.

"_I hope you don't mind me calling like this, only, I don't know. I thought maybe I should apologise?"_

She says it like it's a question and you find it ever so sweet.

"I like you calling like this," you assure her, "You don't need to say sorry."

Because she really doesn't. She pauses on her reply and you take the time to ask her where she'd gotten your number from.

"_I lifted it from Quinn's phone."_

"You did?"

"_Yeah, nothing gets her bitch-fitting like when I go through her stuff. It's no big deal."_

To you it is a big deal. It gives you that same feeling you had when she told you she'd watched your web-show; just the idea that she searched you out specifically - like a part of her wanted to connect with a part of you - it drops your voice an octave or two. It has you holding the receiver with a little more reverence as you cradle it to your ear.

"You could've just asked," you tell her, your nose crinkling a little when she laughs in reply.

"_Oh hell no," _she says, _"you ask Quinn for something and there's always a price to pay."_

"I didn't mean Quinn. I meant you could've asked me."

You say it softly and silence greets you. You wish you could see her face right now. You wish you could try and puzzle out her reaction to your words. You glance across at the clock on your kitchen counter and it reads 10:14. You tell yourself it's early still, that what you're about to say is completely normal.

"Hey, Santana?" It comes out almost a whisper and you push more volume into your next words, "Do you want to do something, now, like… Coffee, or something. Or."

"_Now?" _

"I know, it's late, I just thought maybe-"

"_Okay." _She cuts you off and again you're smiling into your phone. _"I'm in a heap of shit as it is; may as well add late night coffee runs to the list."_

You arrange a place to meet before hanging up the phone and it makes you wonder if she lives close by when she immediately agrees to the local Caffé Nero's, just a ten minute walk away from yours. You don't ponder the query for too long though because you only have twenty minutes before you need to leave if you're going to meet her on time and you want to freshen up. You want to look good.

You want her eyes on you again.

…

She's leaning up against the wall of the coffee shop when you arrive, her attention all wrapped up in the phone which she's holding in her hands, and it gives you the time to fully observe her as you approach. Her hair is tied back, pulled up into some sort of messy bun atop her head, and her clothes look like she's ready for an evening of lounging in front of the television. It makes her looked entirely relaxed and when she glances up and catches you watching her, her smile speaks exactly the same. It's the most _easy _you've seen her look yet, and you decide right away that you like it on her.

She offers you a drawn out, "Hey," slipping her phone into the pocket of her loose sweat pants, before reaching out and pulling the door open for you. She comments on the fact that you walked here and you tell her how close by you live.

"It's still LA after dark," she insists, "don't you watch all the cop shows?"

You roll your eyes and she lets it go, instead asking if you want to get a table first or queue for coffee. There isn't exactly a queue though, not at this time of night, and hardly any of the booths are taken, so you just start walking in the direction of the counter and she falls into step beside you.

You're trying to second guess in your head what she's going to order and you're not entirely shocked when she just asks for straight up coffee, black with no sugar. She looks back at you and her lips lift when she glances down at your mouth and catches you smiling.

"What?" she gently questions you, her voice nowhere near as harsh as her choice in beverage.

"Just you," you tell her. "I totally could've guessed what you were going to order."

"Is that so?"

You nod your affirmation, "Uh-huh. It's a gift."

She's looking at you quizzically and you wonder if you should elaborate; if you should say that you just have a sense for her. That even though you've only shared a few stolen moments of time together, you feel somehow like you know her.

The cashier coughs up a faked interruption and you settle instead for speaking your order. It's too late for you to be indulging in a full on caffeine fest, you have a long day ahead with Quinn and the team tomorrow, and so you settle for a Chai Tea. You love the sweetness and you adore the spice of the cinnamon and you laugh when Santana insists at your side that she never would've picked you for a tea girl, "I would've guessed one of those coffees with the crazy flavours," she says, pointing up at the menu board, "double chocolate, strawberry latte with a twist of caramel cream."

"That's not even a real drink," you say, yet you're sure it should be though even as she's still describing it. You relent a little and tell her that during daylight hours you're an avid fan of all the different flavoured coffees.

"I knew it," she insists, and you're glad at her insistence.

Once she's paid for the drinks and you've collected them from the end of the counter, you make your way over to the furthest booth at the back, far away from the other late night stragglers and not close enough for the barista to overhear your conversation. She takes the side facing the street and you slide your way in easily across from her.

She's now just sitting there grinning at you. Neither of you have said anything since you've sat down, and you want to lift your hand just to check you don't have something on your face, or to perhaps pat down your hair in case of any embarrassing fly away strands. Yet you don't move. You wanted her eyes on you and they are, and you're delighting in the moment.

"So, Brittany S Pierce," she says, using your full name again to break the silence, "how does someone as seemingly nice as you, end up working with Quinn Fabray?"

You know she knows the answer to that, and you can feel the puzzlement fleet across your features as you tell her so. "I'm not talking about MTV," she clarifies, her elbow lifting up onto the table and her head slipping sideways to rest on her hand as she surveys you, "I know that stuff, I mean the before stuff. What did you do before you landed here?"

"Well, you know about my web-show so-"

"Your cat is huge."

She slips in her observation before you can continue and you widen your eyes as if insulted, "That's mean, Santana, Lord Tubbington has real issues when it comes to his weight and comments like that really don't help."

"Is Lord Tubbington really his name?"

She doesn't look at all chastised, she only looks interested as she waits for your answer.

"Sure. I wanted to call him something cute, like Godzilla, but he insisted he's a Lord and that his family name is Tubbington." She's hanging onto your every word and it encourages you to continue, "He does let me call him 'God' for short though, which is probably slightly weird when you consider that he's atheist."

"Wait, your cat is an atheist?"

"Totally. I tried Christening him when he was still just a baby and he went kitty-crazy. I have a scar," you tell her, lifting your hair up on the right side and showing her the thin white line that serves as a constant reminder that cats really don't like water so much. Her hand lifts and you hold your breath, your eyes following her fingers as they hover over the table top.

It looks as if she's going to reach out and trace the blemish on your skin.

You count the seconds.

One.

Two.

Her hand drops back to the table and you breathe again.

"Maybe he's just not digging the Christians," she offers after a beat, "maybe he's Jewish or something, you should think about throwing him a Bar Mitzvah instead."

You smile. She smiles. And again all you can think is how much she pleases you.

You hardly know anything about her, you're sure that most times you've seen her she's been somewhere far less than her best, yet still, sitting across from her now, watching her blow the steam away from the top of her coffee, you've never felt quite so naturally comfortable in someone else's presence. Even if you don't speak anymore, if you both sit here in silence and don't say another word to each other, you'll feel as though your night has been complete.

It's a mind-boggling notion.

One that you lose yourself in until she speaks again, nudging your thoughts back towards what she'd originally asked. She wants to know a little of your story and so you tell her. Not everything, you're not someone who regurgitates their every life issue at the first time of asking, but you tell her some of the little things. You tell her about your dancing, you explain how close you were to accepting a scholarship to Juilliard in New York.

"What happened?" she asks you, her eyes dipping to show concern, "that school's pretty shit hot, you must've had a good reason for turning them down."

"I wanted to do this instead," you tell her simply.

It's the same reaction your Mom and your grandparents had when she looks at you confused; your whole life they'd supported you, every weekend there was someone there to take you to your classes, or someone to sit in the audience applauding at each and every one of your dance recitals, and no one could quite understand when you decided to walk away right at the moment when you'd been accepted into one of the best dance programs in the country. You can't really explain it, it's not even a decision you agonised long and hard over, you just knew. "I'd always been a dancer," you say, shrugging your shoulders, "I just wanted to know if I could be something else."

She takes her time considering you when you say that. Her eyebrows are still dipping down but she doesn't look so much confused as contemplative. "That's pretty admirable," she tells you, her voice quiet, "I don't know many people who'd have the balls to just change it up like that."

"It was easy," you explain, taking a moment to bring your fast cooling cup of tea to your lips. "I just thought about what would make me happiest. Dancing's always made me really happy, it still does and I still dance all the time, but this," you shoot her a goofy grin and she smiles right back at you, "I love this. Everyday's like a giant new adventure and I get to meet heaps of really cool people and make these really cool shows…"

Your words trail off because she's just looking at you.

She's looking at you in a way you're sure that no one else has ever quite looked at you before. You can feel every place her eyes touch, and each of those places feel as if they're being gently caressed.

"What?" you say, because what else can you say.

She doesn't answer right off, she just shakes her head slowly and drops her gaze down to the table top. She's still smiling when she's meets your eyes again, but it's a different smile, it's more measured. "You're just… you're different, okay?"

You don't know what she means and you look at her for more.

She looks down at the watch on her wrist though and you're sure you know what's coming next.

"I should probably think about heading back soon," she says, and in this instance you hate being right.

"But you haven't told me anything about you yet," you reply, because she hasn't. All you really know about her is her name. That she has a tenuous _friendship_ with Quinn. And that she looks extremely hot dressed in nothing but her underwear. "Can you really not stay a little longer?"

Her eyes flick from you, to the window and back to her watch.

"I wish it was that easy," she says, her voice dropping, "the crap I caught for the weekend is gonna stick for a while yet. I probably shouldn't push it so soon."

You hate the way that all of the softness just slips from her edges. She looks how she looked earlier this afternoon and you're sure that she's silently seething again. You want to say something but you're really not sure what to say; you _still_ don't know anything about her, you don't know how to soothe her.

You state the obvious because you don't know what else to state.

"But you're an adult," you tell her. "You get to make your own decisions, right?"

The short laugh she gives isn't particularly joyful. "Sure, in your universe maybe." Her hands push her empty coffee cup aside and she starts pulling apart a paper napkin she picks up from the table, "The Lopez Family Laws weren't exactly founded on The Bill of Rights though."

Again you're not sure what she means and again you look for more.

"Just forget all ideas of liberty and justice and you'll be close to our constitution."

She smiles but she isn't smiling and her eyes are no longer on you.

You can't help but nudge her. You push your foot across, under the table, until you meet hers. You give a tap, and then another, waiting for her eyes to rise. "Isn't that why we have declarations of independence?" you ask her honestly when she meets your gaze. "And why we're allowed great big grizzly bear arms?"

"Grizzly bears?"

"Sure, to overthrow unjust governments."

Her eyes are scrunching up like she's puzzling you out, and you love how adorable it makes her look. "You mean the right to bear arms, yeah? Like the second amendment?"

"That's what I said, Santana."

This time her laugh, although quiet, is real, and you delight again in her softness. It doesn't prevent her insisting that it's time to leave though, and it doesn't stop you pouting until she agrees that you can do this again soon. There's so much more that you want to know about her, and you're excited for the next time before this time is even over.

She holds the door open for you again as you walk out onto the sidewalk, and you offer a thank you. She assures you you're welcome and then you both freeze. Because what do you do here?

You want to pull her in for a hug.

You want to turn your head and kiss the skin on her cheek.

You want to miss and hit her lips.

She's fumbling in her purse for her car keys though and you're just standing, waiting.

"This was really great Britt," she says, once she's found what she's looking for.

And now she's looking at you. And you're looking at her.

You step forward, just a small step.

"I'll call you soon, okay?" you say, because you have to say something.

"Or I'll call you," she replies, taking a small step back.

You smile. She smiles.

And you both say goodnight.

...


	4. A World Full Of Thimbles

You're sat in one of those swivelling office chairs at the campaign headquarters of Russell Fabray, perched at the end of Quinn's makeshift desk-space, wondering how it is you're going to make any of this seem at all appealing to any of your viewers. Sam was with you this morning; he took various shots of Quinn canvassing local voters via telephone and pressing palms with the office staff, but he looked just as unsure as you when you asked him if he thought the footage would be particularly good for anything. "I don't know, Britt," he'd offered, his eyes not quick in meeting yours, "I spoke to Tina this morning; her and Mike are filming down at The Music Centre today. Rachel Berry's giving singing lessons to a bunch of underprivileged kids."

The tone of his voice had matched your mood. It's your second full day filming with Quinn, and sure, she's given you access to all of her appointments, it's just that none of her appointments are all that exciting. The camera still loves her, even the pointless shots are pretty shots, but you know already that she's going to have to up her game a whole lot more if she wants to appeal to the core of your audience. It is MTV after all; you're not so sure that church luncheons with the local elders are really the way to sway opinions. At least not in the right direction.

You look at the clock on the wall, quietly ticking away the seconds of your life, and you're just grateful that you're not going to be stuck here _all _day. The people staffing the Fabray headquarters all seem nice enough and you were happy to swap smiles and introductions with them earlier in the day, but it's past lunch now and everyone's really busy with manning the phones and you really have nothing to do other than swivel back and forth in your office chair, counting the minutes until you can leave.

This afternoon you have a _'reading engagement'_.

That's exactly how it was entered into Quinn's calendar. Sam is to meet you back here at 2, and then the three of you will drive over to some local arts centre and Quinn will apparently read.

"It's my Dad's way of countering the claim he hates the arts," is how she elaborated when you asked for more detail, and you're quickly learning that cryptic clues and half-spun answers are her favourite way to brush aside all of your queries.

You'd like to host a special Rock the Vote edition of Fondue for Two. You'd like to see how well she dodges questions when she's on the end of one of Lord Tubbington's legendary glares.

It's actually not a bad idea when you think about it; your popularity is growing by the day, as is your cat's, and if you can produce a good show, if you can really highlight Quinn in all of her glory, you're certain that it can only help.

You study her side-profile for a few seconds as you wonder what subjects Lord T would want you to discuss with her. You're pretty certain he's not big into politics, not anymore than you are, but he'd sure been cranky when the LA outdoor smoking ban had come into effect last year, and you know he's still got some valid points he'd probably like you to raise.

You wait until Quinn hangs up the phone from her latest canvassing call and you seek her opinion, "Do you think cats should be allowed to smoke in public places?"

Her head tips to the side and confusion pinches her eyebrows close together, "What, Brittany?" she sighs. She looks harassed and she looks flustered, and you forgive her for being a little behind in her knowledge when it comes to the various different policies of her father's campaign.

"Doesn't matter," you say, shooting her a quick grin across the desk top, "I'll worry about Lord Tubbington, you just…" You point towards the phone, and sure enough, it starts up ringing again.

"You've reached the campaign offices of Russell Fabray, this is Quinn Fabray speaking. How can I help you today?"

Her voice is lilywhite and lovely when she answers the call, and if you couldn't see her face you'd have no idea at all how stressed out she actually appears to be. You guess that having the same conversation over and over and over again would push you to your limits pretty quickly though, so you can totally understand where her pained look is coming from.

You don't hear the door to the street when it either opens or closes. You're still caught up sympathising with Quinn's tired expression, and it's only when you feel that sense of someone watching you that you realise that your space has become smaller. As if you can feel all the atoms in the room rearranging themselves to accommodate her presence.

You look up and slightly to your right, and there she is.

She doesn't look laidback and easy as she did three nights ago on your late night coffee excursion; she looks spectacular. All hard-lined and professional. She's wearing a charcoal grey fitted skirt, a tailored white blouse and some kind of delicate matching necktie which only serves to draw your eyes towards her throat. Up to her lips. And then to her eyes. They're waiting for you when you reach them and her gaze is pointed.

You were checking her out. She caught you again.

She shakes her head lightly and begins to walk towards yours and Quinn's desk. Her eyes break away from you and you watch her expression shift as she offers up nothing but a quickly uttered _Fabray _in Quinn's direction.

"Well, well, look what the cat's dragged in; to what do we owe the horror?"

Quinn doesn't smile when she speaks and you have no idea what cat's have to do with Santana being here right now. She honestly doesn't look as if she's been dragged anywhere.

"I was bored at home," Santana tells her, completely ignoring the cat aspect of the question, "you've got that reading thing this afternoon, right? I thought you could use the support, or..."

The words trail off and you watch as they lock stares. It looks as if Santana is asking a question and Quinn is stonewalling her. Eventually her green eyes drop back down to her desk and she offers Santana a terse _thank you_ before pointing out a similar yet unoccupied desk just across the walkway, "We leave at 2, make yourself useful until then, okay?"

…

Even though Quinn said thank you, you get the feeling that she's not altogether happy with Santana being here. It's a sentiment you don't share. You're more than happy, not just because she's here, but because the way you're angled at the end of Quinn's desk and the way that Santana is sitting at hers, means that every time you look up, you see her.

It's the first opportunity you've had to see her since the coffee house the other night and so you're basking in it. You try and pretend at first that it's the clock on the wall above her head that keeps catching your attention, but it's no use really.

You look up at her. She's looking back at you.

You watch her pick up her cellphone, shift her gaze down to the screen and type out a message. When your phone vibrates on the desk just a few seconds later and her name flashes up on your screen, you can't help but smile out your expectation as you pick it up to read.

"_You're distracting me."_

That's all that it says and you look across at her quizzically. Her head drops and you wait for the next message to come through.

"_Seriously. Stop staring at me, Britt."_

Your snort of laughter comes out loud, bubbling up from your throat before you can stop yourself. It's funny because it's not funny; she's staring at you too.

She effectuates a sternness to her look now, and it's all you can do to hold the rest of your laughter inside. You start typing out a reply to her message, keeping your eyes fixed on hers the whole time, your fingers flitting over the keys without needing to look. You spare the message one quick glance before you hit send and then you watch as she receives.

Her eyes goes down. Her eyes come up. She's questioning you, but all you can do is smile back at her. She does look pretty today. You wanted to tell her that.

She shakes her head again and then your phone vibrates in your hand.

"_I like your hat."_

You can't help but run your fingers up over the brim, almost tipping it to her in salute as your grin widens. Your Mom had bought you the reporters cap as part of your going away gifts and it's still your favourite hat to wear on the job. You style your hair straight on days you don it, and you've even been known to keep a pen stashed behind your right ear to fully complete the look.

You're about to reply again when Quinn's voice cuts through your gaiety. "Who on _earth_ are you texting?" she asks in that ever so demanding way of hers. She narrows her eyes on you before flicking her gaze across to Santana, obviously noting the phone still in her hand.

"It's Sam," you say quickly, needing to cut off her suspicions before they can properly form, "He's probably gonna be here soon, so."

She looks back at you and you can see the feint trace of disbelief etched across her features.

"Sam?"

"Sure," you affirm, and it's every single lucky star that you have to remember to thank later, when Sam chooses this as the most opportune moment _ever_ to walk through the door. His eyes search you out straight away and you wave him on over. "See?" you say, looking back at Quinn, "Sam."

"Sam," she repeats again, yet she still doesn't seem to fully trust you.

You twitch when your phone vibrates on the desk again, but you don't take your eyes away from Quinn. It's like you're silently waiting each other out and you really don't know what for. She eventually breaks the stare, glancing again at Santana before switching on her easy smile and greeting Sam.

You wait long enough for her attention to have shifted towards getting out on the road, and you pick up your phone, smiling once more as you read Santana's name. The message says nothing more than, _"I really like your hat"_, but that more is more than enough to put a little extra pep in your step as you head on out to the car.

…

The ride over to the Children's Art Studio is mostly quiet.

Quinn has procured one of her father's 4x4 fancy affairs, with blacked out windows and a pimped out entertainment system, and the twenty minute drive is drowned out by the sounds of the local radio station blasting loud from the speakers. It's not ideal. You should really be discussing some sort of plan for the afternoon, or perhaps offering Quinn some kind of direction, but ever since you've left the campaign headquarters she seems intent on keeping quiet. Not even Santana appears willing to tangle with her from her place up front, so you settle for silence in the back seat as well.

Sam is beside you; you loaded all of his equipment into the back of Quinn's vehicle before you left, and you're just glad that there's someone here with you to ride out the tension. You've caught his glances, you know he's just as confused by the frosty atmosphere as you are, but there's nothing you can do to thaw it out now. Normally you'd be messing about; one of you would do something to set the other off and you'd be engaging in fun-times before you knew it.

Not here though. Not now.

You just watch the scenery change as you pass from one street to the next, and you sigh with silent relief when Quinn pulls into the parking facilities of the Arts Studio and switches off the stereo. No one moves for a moment, and it's Santana who disturbs the quiet, "You ready for this Q?"

It sounds ominous and you wonder what you've missed.

"I hate this, San."

She says it and you believe it. You've never heard Quinn sound anything other than hard and in control when she talks to Santana, yet right now her tone has dropped, her voice is soft, and she's using a nickname.

"It's not too late to back out; we'll say you're sick or something. Even he couldn't blame you for that."

Santana offers the option, yet all it seems to do is force Quinn's shoulders ramrod straight again.

"Back out?" she questions, the disdain back on her face and the hardness back in her voice, "I would never give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing me fail."

You want to ask. Of course you do.

Yet you're forced to keep all of your questions to yourself.

…

The reading thing makes sense once someone takes the time to actually explain things out to you. A group of children at the Art Studio are doing a project on Peter Pan and Quinn has been invited, as part of the Read and Create program, to share a chapter of the book with the children and then tour and view their work so far.

You think it's kind of cool.

You know that there's an agenda behind it, Quinn herself said that this was a gimmick to prove her father doesn't really hate the arts, but you loved Peter Pan as a child, you still love the arts now, and you think that as an opportunity to really sell Quinn's image to the public, it probably won't get much better than this.

Children soften people.

Even Sue Sylvester, your old cheer coach of Fondue fame, had removed her fatwa against Lord Tubbington once she'd given birth to her 800 year old baby at the end of your senior year. You imagine that people will fall in love with Quinn's face, and then, once you've made the most of this afternoon opportunity, they'll fall in love with her soft heart and childish charm.

From where you watch her now she seems surprisingly like a natural. The program leader, Gloria, is introducing her to each of the children, and she drops down to their level as if she's been doing it for years. You can't hear what she's saying, you're too far away, but you see quite clearly that she's making the children smile and you glance up toward Sam to check that he's getting this.

He shoots you a wink as he keeps the camera angled in Quinn's direction, "I don't know what her reading's like," he whispers out to you, "but she's looking pretty good in my frame."

You punch his shoulder lightly and remind him to keep his mind on the job, but he quickly counters, telling you his mind is all over the job.

It's enough to make you chuckle. You really do try to keep your tone serious when you threaten him with Mercedes wrath though; they've been dating three years, she moved out to LA with the both of you, and he remains absolutely smitten. It's makes it funny to watch him back peddle as you gently tease him; as if you could ever hold on to the notion that he'd seriously look in any other woman's direction.

You send him a sly smile to let him know you're only joking and you see as his grip visibly loosens on the camera and his posture slides back to relaxed.

"You play a hard game, Britt," he states once he's ended his current introductory shot, but the way he pulls your cap down until it covers your eyes lets you know he's nothing but happy. He tells you that he's setting up nearer the front to cover the actual reading and you stand back and let him go with a smile. You don't need to be next to the camera, and you'd rather watch from the back of the room anyway where you can observe everything that's happening. You wait while Quinn takes her seat and Sam gives you the nod that all is okay with him, and then you turn around.

You're not surprised to see her sitting back there already; you're used to the feel of her eyes on you now and you felt her stare the minute she settled herself down. Your feet instantly start to drift and you follow the natural current until you're standing in front of her. She's perched against the edge of a table, a table made for two, and you ask almost formally, "Is this space taken?" You point to the empty spot at her side, just to clarify, and you're glad when she shakes her head no.

You want to say more, to start a conversation, but Gloria is hushing down the children, Quinn is rifling through the book to find her pre-chosen start page, and one of the ladies, you don't remember her name, is pulling the cord next to the windows, shutting the blinds and effectively turn the room into a storytelling cocoon.

You turn your eyes to the front and you wait.

Quinn's voice, clear and perfect, begins by announcing the chapter and you enjoy the thrill that runs through you when you realise it's chapter three. The smile is already touching your lips by the time Tink has flown through the nursery window, and for a moment you forget yourself; you shift your body further back onto the table, pulling your knees up in front of you to make a rest for your chin. You discard all thoughts of growing up and of adulthood and you just let yourself revel in the memory of the story.

You don't remember exactly the first time you ever heard the tale of Peter and the Lost Boys, but you do know that you weren't old enough then to have made any bad memories. Your world was still a perfect place.

The perfect place for Peter to prance and search for his hidden shadow.

The perfect place for Wendy to wake and wonder at soothing his woes.

You tune out as Quinn's words divulge the truth of Peter's predicament, because the world isn't quite so perfect anymore and stories of children who lost their parents isn't a place where your happy thoughts reside. You observe the seated children instead; their eyes all upturned towards Quinn, some of their mouths hanging open as they soak up each little morsel of story she lays out before them. A part of you envies their innocence, yet a larger part only delights in their joy. Their smiles are precious and you hope Sam is capturing each one of their faces, especially the triumphant expressions on the little girls' faces when Quinn declares with Peter's words, _"Wendy, one girl is more use than _twenty_ boys!" _

It's a line you always remember fondly and it makes you smile again now, mouthing silently along with Quinn as she breathes life into the words.

You can feel yourself getting lost in the story again. You almost let the familiarity of it lift you up and away and off into enchantment, yet something stops you. Perhaps your knowledge of what is to come next, or of how the story now goes.

You measure the remembered distance between each of the words and you measure your breaths accordingly. It's ridiculous. It's _really _ridiculous.

You've shared one coffee with the woman, you've stolen barely a few minutes of moments together; You can _not_ be thinking about kissingher already. Yet you feel your ears pink and your body stiffen as Quinn speaks the words, _"She also said she'd give him a kiss if he liked…"_

You close your eyes tight because you will not think about it.

You refuse to think about it.

"…_But Peter did not know what she meant, and he held his hand out expectantly."_

You only open your eyes because you feel it again. That same weight. That same stare. You don't have to really turn your head around at all, you only have to flick your gaze to the side to see how she is now looking at you; _studying_ you. You feel your ears darken to a pinker shade of shy and it's all you can do to hold her gaze.

You hear Quinn ask in Wendy's aghast tone if Peter doesn't know what a kiss is, yet you only want to know Santana's kiss.

Your eyes drop to her lips as she flicks her tongue out and makes them wet. Your mouth goes dry. You swallow hard. "Santana," you say, and it sounds like a question. Like neither of you quite remember where you are or what's occurring.

You drop your legs down from their knees up position and you turn your head slightly. Your hands you slide across the table top until you're gripping the front edge and holding tight for dear life. For a moment she holds still, as if not sure of what to do, yet she doesn't stop looking at you, and when you smile at her - a half smile, a _maybe _smile - her hands drop down from her lap to mirror your position. From there it's only an inch, a hairsbreadth, and you cross the distance before you give yourself time to think through your actions. You don't kiss her, you don't offer her a thimble, you simply slide your pinky finger softly over hers and listen to the rest of the story.

…

Sometimes you say things and you know the moment the words have leapt free from your mouth that you've made a mistake; like your words have come out backwards or your thoughts have come out too forward, or even sometimes, like today, your compliments have come out sounding like insults.

You assume that's what happened with Quinn.

It was your every intention to make her feel good. To erase those earlier moments of awkwardness surrounding your texting habits and have her feeling again as though she has found a friend in you. She'd been so tense before the reading and you guessed in the car when she spoke to Santana that she didn't really wish to do it, yet she had done it and she'd done it so very well. Not just the reading, but after, as she'd held the children's hands and made appropriate cooing noises over all their various pieces of Peter Pan inspired art, you were struck by just how naturally she had taken to the role.

You meant it when you told her she's awesome with kids. You meant it as a compliment.

Four hours later, sat in the emptiness of your apartment, you still haven't figured out how on earth you said it wrong. What words had been the words to freeze Quinn's face the way it had frozen. What hidden barb she had heard that'd caused her eyes to widen before turning brittle and hard in your direction.

"_Get out." _

It's all you remember really hearing.

You had just parked up back at the campaign headquarters and you and Sam planned to head back in and show her the footage he recorded that afternoon. You complimented her because she hadn't looked sure when you suggested the plan and you really wanted her to see for herself how awesome she had been.

Instead you sat shocked at her reaction.

You think you all did. At least you and Sam did.

Santana simply put her hand on Quinn's arm and sent soft, placating words her way. "Ease up Q, she didn't mean anything by it."

You really didn't. Certainly not anything meant to cause Quinn pain.

You and Sam unloaded your equipment from the back of the car in silence, and when Sam asked if you wanted to come eat dinner with him and Mercedes, you asked him if he could just drop you home instead. You feel like crap. Like the worst kind of crap. Not even Lord Tubbington with all his feline wisdom can make you feel any better about the situation, and all you can seem to do is sit, and stew, and replay again and again your choice of words.

"…_You were so great with the kids today Quinn. You're like an awesome mom-in-training."_

That's all you meant. And you still don't get why it pained her.

You smack your palm against your head for what feels like the thousandth time this evening and you let out groan which signifies just how far you are from making sense of anything.

You don't even consider what this could mean for your job.

You've avoided two of Holly's calls already, yet you know the next time your phone rings you're going to have to pick it up and explain something you can't really explain; 'yes, the day went great. Also, I seem to have totally, in some way I'm yet to understand, managed to alienate the main feature for our project'.

You pull your cap back down over your eyes as you contemplate just how stupid that sounds, and you wonder what the deal is with super late entry into Juilliard. Like two years late. Because after the way the day turned out it really might be your only option.

Your phone starts to vibrate on top of the stack of magazines on your coffee table and you wait for the inevitable thumping beats of your ring tone to kick in. Yet they don't. You hear the simple chime of your text message alert instead and it pauses all previous thought as you instantly list every person it could be:

Holly. Sam. Your Mom. Your Great Aunt Hilda from down in the Boondocks.

When you reach for your phone there's only one person you want it to be.

Santana.

You didn't speak to her at all today, not really, though you think perhaps what you did share touched at places deeper than words. All of the looks. That one quiet touch. When you see her name spelled out at the top of your message list it tugs at hard your smile; you assume she'll want to let you know how Quinn is, you hope that she'll tell you everything is okay and maybe explain the misunderstanding. You don't expect to read what you see.

"_Do you still want to know something about me?"_

It's both cryptic and enticing and you answer without wait. She replies asking for your address and again you don't hesitate to comply with her wishes.

…

She pulls up outside your apartment complex in a sleek black Audi TT, with her hair tied up and the top rolled down, and she looks a little like every fantasy you ever had when you first decided to chance your luck out in LA. It's like a perfect picture and you pause for a moment to save the frame as a memory.

She exits the car as you walk toward to her and for a second you wonder if she's getting out to hug you hello. "Hey," she says, stopping her feet long before you reach touching distance.

"Hi," you reply, smiling brightly at her before she turns and opens the passenger side door with a dramatic flourish. She's changed out of her earlier outfit and she looks a lot more comfortable now in her skin-tight jeans and loose fitting red tank top.

She bows low as you slide yourself into her car and you only just refrain from telling her that she's possibly the cutest, yet hottest fool you've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Instead you roll your eyes at her outright adorability and wait for her to slide in beside you. "Nice car," you tell her. You figure it's the safest thing.

"Nice hat," she answers, and you figure she's staying safe too.

"You already said that, twice."

She reaches across the centre console and tugs gently on the bill of your cap; she doesn't pull it all the way down to cover your eyes like Sam had, she just gives it a soft nudge down before lifting it back up again, "I really meant it though," she insists, "it's cute."

You again want to tell her that she's cute. You hope your smile covers it.

Once she starts the car you venture to ask where you're going, assuming she'll take you back to the coffee place, or to a new coffee place, but she doesn't answer. She looks at you and shrugs, her eyes only focusing on you for a second before she steels her attention on the road ahead. It's quiet, but you can handle the quiet and when she doesn't seek to turn on the radio you settle back into the simple silence of just riding by her side.

She looks so concentrated and capable and you don't pull your eyes away from her once. She could be driving you anywhere; you really wouldn't know, and quite frankly, at the moment, you really wouldn't care.

…

You drive and you drive and you drive, until the city is but a distant memory left somewhere far behind you and all that's left in front of you is a bird's eye view of some small housing development, tacked on to the side of a town that looks smaller and less significant than even your old town. From where Santana's parked high up on the top of this hill, you can see everything laid out before you, yet you have no idea, and neither has she told you, why it is she's brought you here or where here even is.

She unclips her seatbelt and opens her door, rubbing her arms against the light chill of the late night air. She takes a second to breathe and then she turns to you, "Come sit with me?" she asks, and you're out of the car and propped next to her on the hood without need of a second invite. She pulls her feet up in front of her, like you on the desk earlier, and rests her chin down on her knees. Her eyes are soaking up the scene before her and you know she's going to say something soon, that she's just collecting her thoughts.

"Want to know something stupid?" she eventually asks, and you feel your eyebrows furrow at her words. "This," she says, tossing her hand up and out in front of her, "is pretty much my favourite place in the whole world. Dumb, huh?"

She's not looking at you so you don't answer and she instead fills in her own blanks.

"Shit, even I know it's dumb. I have everything, right? I'm so fucking privileged, you don't even know. And yet…" She sighs and trails off and again you just wait. "Do you ever wonder what if, Brittany?"

"What if, what?"

"What if everything?"

She turns her head to look at you and you wish you knew the answer to what she's asking. It really does look as if she's asking for everything though, and you don't even know where to begin. "What is this place?" you settle for saying, because it feels like somewhere important.

"It's not important."

"Sure it is," you insist, and again she looks away.

You see her start to say something at least ten times while she keeps her eyes away from you, and you also see the moment when she decides to say nothing. Her arms come up and wrap tight around her knees and her head turns to look even further into the distance.

"Santana."

You say it quietly but you know she hears you. "You don't have to tell me, okay? I don't need to know where we are, I'm just really glad you brought me here."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely yeah."

She looks back and meets your eyes and you've made her smile again.

"I do still want to know _some_ stuff about you though," you tell her.

"Some stuff?"

"Sure."

"Like what?"

You think long and hard because you kind of feel like you're being given the keys to the castle and you don't want to rattle the wrong lock. You stay away from questions of Quinn, you rid your mind of thoughts about dynamics and exchanges you just don't understand, and you ask the simple stuff. Like her birthday, and her favourite breakfast cereal, and that one holiday destination where she really wants to visit.

It's fun and you like it and you really like her.

You've both shifted your positions so that you're cross legged up on the hood and you forget all about the chill in the air sometime after she made you laugh for the first time over the outlandishness of her answers. She asks you questions too; nothing heavy, nothing serious, nothing that would dare to disturb the ease of feeling you've found up here on this hill in the middle of nowhere, just the gentlest of enquiries into what makes you, you.

She now knows that all of the colours are your favourite colours and that if you really, truly have to choose, then your favourite way to eat your eggs in the morning is over-easy. You don't add that you also like them with a kiss, because the eyebrow dip you gave her when you said _over-easy _seems to have flustered her enough.

You lean to the side and nudge her shoulder and she laughs to cover her awkwardness. "You're the only person I've ever met that can make eggs seem like something indecent," she tells you, and you take it as a compliment.

You think she meant it as a compliment.

You think.

When you don't reply, she shuffles closer to your side and this time it's her who nudges your shoulder, "What's wrong, Britt? Don't tell me indecent eggs offend you?"

It should make you laugh but it doesn't. You want to ask about Quinn now, yet you don't want to ask about her and Quinn. Or you do. But you don't.

"Britt?" she asks again, and her softness melts you.

"I just… it's nothing, really. Just earlier."

"You mean all that crap with Quinn?"

She says it so easily, yet you don't feel easy. "I really upset her, didn't I?"

"Is that what you think?" You nod your head and she just shakes hers in return. "Nothing today was about you, okay? You did nothing wrong at all."

"But Quinn-"

"No, Britt. Q likes to lash out all ways when she's hurting; you just gotta learn to not take it too personal. She'll have forgotten about it by tomorrow, trust me."

You want to. Even though you still don't know what you said wrong or why Quinn was hurting, you want to trust that it's all going to be alright by tomorrow. "Okay," you say, and the smile she gives you in return makes you believe it.

"All better?" she asks.

"All better," you confirm.

She reaches across and boops the end of your nose with her fingertip and you swear she looks as giddy at her success as if she'd just brought peace to the world and put an end to starvation. "Awesome," she says and you know you agree.

Everything about her is awesome. And you don't mean in the _yay, great! _sense, you mean it in the way that she absolutely inspires the deepest sense of awe in you. The things that you don't know about her still greatly outnumber the things that you do know, but you can tell, you are sure, that she is special. You want to give her a world full of thimbles and a world full of kisses. You want to take her by the hand and fly right up to that second star on the right and keep going straight on until morning.

Maybe longer.

You know that you're staring again.

You know that you want to touch her again.

Your eyes flick to her lips and you think of first kisses.

"Brittany," she says.

"Uh-huh?" you reply.

She leans forward and lifts the bill of your cap up higher on your head. "Thank you for coming with me tonight," she whispers.

You close your eyes as she moves closer, and you feel the softest of presses up against your lips. It's there but it's not there and it's gone before you can taste it.

You open your eyes and she's staring right back at you.

And maybe, it looks like, she's found a sense of awe.

You want to lean in again. You're more desperate than you were a moment ago to know the flavour of her lips, but she's pulling away as you pull in, and she laughs when you overbalance and nearly topple over into her lap.

"Come on," she says, her hand reaching out to gently steady you, "I think it's time I took you home."

You don't mean to pout so forcefully, but you do and you're glad of it, because her eyes roll in the most adorable way imaginable and she shakes her head as if to clear the sight of you from her eyes, "Seriously," she implores, "What I am even meant to _do_ with you?"

It's a question you know you're not supposed to answer, and it takes all of your will power not to tell her what you'd like her to do with you. Instead you shoot her a wink, a knowing look, and you slide down from the hood of her car.

"For now, you're meant to drive me home," you tell her, sashaying your hips as you walk around to the passenger side, "As for when you get me there…"

You let your words trail off and you suggest with silence all of the things that you're not yet able to say with sound. She looks up at the stars, back towards you, and you wonder if there'll ever be a time when you don't leave her smiling that certain smile and shaking her head in the bashful way that you suspect you already know, is reserved especially for you.

…

The ride back to your apartment block takes half the time it took you to drive out to Santana's mysterious favourite place in the world, and whereas you felt relaxed and happy on your way over there, you feel more and more inclined to slip into somber the closer that you get to home. By the time you actually pull up outside, your pout is a genuine one brought on by a sense of sadness.

This night has been perfect. If you could've dreamed of an evening that would've felt so naturally perfect and planned out by the universe, then this would have been it. Santana hadn't taken you to some grand restaurant and neither of you had labelled it as anything like a date, yet without knowing the reasoning behind it, you feel as though she's taken you somewhere special and it was better than any date you've ever been on.

And now it's over.

You may have flirted out an insinuation that there was more to come once you arrived home, but you know by the barely there pressure of her lips against yours, that this is no high-speed chase out into oblivion.

You don't know what this is. You doubt if she does.

But you know it's not an easy fuck at the end of a perfect evening.

She turns the key in the ignition and switches the engine to off. You listen to the little clicks the car makes as it settles into its sedentary position and you wonder what words you're supposed to say now when all of your thoughts are so damn cheesy and wrapped tight in romance.

She says nothing either.

Her hands are against the steering wheel and she just sits tapping her fingers in a rhythm you don't recognise but that you find easy to read. "Hey," you say gently, waiting until her eyes are on you.

"Hey."

"I don't want to go in yet."

She sighs soft in agreement and you see her eyes flick across to check the lit up clock on her dashboard. "It's two in the morning," she says, as if that makes a difference.

"I want you to come in."

You whisper it because you're really not ready to say it. The tightening of her hands around the steering wheel suggests that she's also not ready to hear it.

You see the muscle in her jaw twitch, you know that she's winding herself up tight with the tension of not finding an answer to your words, and you seek to soothe her woes. You lift up your hand and tuck the hair back behind her ear that had flown loose from her ponytail while she was driving, and you say her name. Soft and gentle. Ever so careful.

"I said I want you to come in, I didn't _ask_ you to come in." She looks at you and you smile, you shrug, "Besides, the last time I had a visitor over without running it past Tubbs first, he totally freaked out and didn't talk to me for like, a whole two weeks after."

Her hands relax a little and she asks if you collected any scars that time.

"Not me, no. As for my visitor…" You leave it hanging there and she lets out a small laugh. "It's probably best that we don't surprise him."

"It probably is," she agrees.

You know it's time to get out of the car, to say goodbye and bid farewell as you watch her drive away, but you really don't want to. You sigh as your fingers brush against the handle on the door, pausing when she speaks again, "Wait, Britt."

You look back at her and she thanks you again for going with her tonight.

"Thank you for asking me," you say, and you can see that there's more.

"We do get to do this again, right?" Her voice comes out sounding timid this time, and again you think she's adorable.

"I hope so. Maybe next time you can come in and meet Lord T."

She considers for a moment before she says maybe.

"Definitely maybe?" you ask.

"Maybe definitely," she replies.

You're still laughing as you exit the car and stand on the sidewalk.

You wave to her, she waves back at you, and as she drives off, perfectly framed by the light of the moon, you begin to believe again in magic and fairytales and happily ever afters.

…


	5. The Edge Of The Ocean

I just wanted to say a quick hi and thank you to those reading along and enjoying. I sincerely appreciate the reviews and the follows and the favourites and I think you're all awesome :) Really _really _awesome.

Also, an extra special thank you to Shell for being the awesomest. And to Vix for letting me talk. And talk. And talk about the story.

That's all I got.

Hope you enjoy the next chapter :)

...

You're sitting in a sports bar, four beers in and one steak down, listening to the crowd around you go crazy over the Lakers game currently being shown on the big screen televisions fixed high up on the walls. You don't often follow sports; you cheered hard back in high school and you never missed any of the games, but your interest had always been on your own performance and that of the squad of girls you led, rather than on the performance of the team you were meant to be cheering for. Tonight you're an honorary Laker. You have one of Mike's spare caps wedged down tight on your head, Tina has painted two thick purple and gold stripes onto each of your cheeks, and you're sure that come morning your upper arm's going to be coloured purple too if Holly keeps using it as a punching bag each time one of the LA based players gets the ball through the hoop.

She lands another hard one now, her face beaming with the enormity of her grin as she hollers some kind of victory chant loud into your ear. Mike slaps you hard on the back, and even Sam, he who spends half of his time insisting to you and Mercedes that his allegiances will always lie with his home teams, is poking you in the ribs and leaning across the table to high-five Tina.

"Hold 'em high, people!" Holly exclaims, and you raise your bottle up along with the rest of the gang before executing the obligatory chink of glass and chug of celebration that signals the end of another Friday night game.

As far as business meetings go, you've always enjoyed Holly's the most.

She has a way of putting everyone around her at ease. Not that you've ever had trouble meeting people or making new friends, but right from the off, she'd seen to it that the majority of your meetings were held in informal settings and that you met the people you'd be regularly working with as buddies to hang out with and not just as nameless, faceless, office bound colleagues.

It's how you first met Tina and Mike.

It was only your third night in the new apartment you used to share with Sam and Mercedes when your doorbell chimed and Holly had been stood on the doorstep with fresh pizzas in hand, while Mike and Tina hovered behind her, their arms filled full with an assortment of both beers and spirits. _"Team Chang, meet Team Hicksville Ohio," _had been how she'd introduced you, and you've all been firm friends ever since.

It helps that Mike is just as much of a bad-ass dancer as you are and that Tina has a passion for Manga that molds perfectly with Sam's passion for anything comics, but you're certain that even without those obvious shared interests you all would've gelled together pretty well.

They're good people. You think that you and Sam are pretty good people too.

Now that the game is finished and at least half the patrons have left the bar and taken the rowdiness of the atmosphere with them, you can carry on the conversation that began over dinner regarding the progress of the rocking of the vote. Mike's scissors had sliced your paper in half, meaning he'd got to pitch to Holly first about just how awesome all of the footage they've shot so far is, but now it's your turn and all of the beer has you feeling rather eloquent.

You cover your mouth with your hand to stifle the half belch-half hiccup that wishes to break free and you focus on all of your strong points. Like how great Quinn looks in front of the camera. And how sophisticated you thought she came across at the church luncheon thing the other day.

Holly puts up her hand to signal another round of beers to the waiter, and you know you're not doing well at keeping her attention. When you mention the reading at the Kids Art Studio she actually goes so far as to roll her eyes at you, "Where's the excitement," she asks, "where's the _drama_?"

"It was Peter Pan," you tell her, shrugging your shoulders.

She points in Tina's direction, clicking her fingers rapidly as she speaks, "Tell Team _Ohi-and-Goodbye-O _here, what Rachel did at the hospital last night."

When Tina starts to speak, you're not that concerned. You don't see how visiting a bunch of sick kids - while something entirely noble - is any more interesting than reading Peter Pan to a bunch of healthy kids. Your ears prick up when she mentions _flash-mob_.

"Huh?" you ask, needing to hear it again.

"Seriously Brittany, she paid for a mob of like fifty people to dress up and dance like princes and princesses in the background, while she belted out a crazy mash-up of every single Disney tune ever known to man."

"Wow," you say. And then, "_Fifty_?"

"At _least_ fifty."

You hear Sam sigh beside you but you're much too busy gawking at Tina in disbelief to pay him any attention. Holly has a point; compared to Disney flash-mobs, your Peter Pan reading is going to appear all sorts of boring.

"Tomorrow we're going to that 'Band-Aids for AIDS' benefit concert too, and," Tina carries on, barely pausing for breath, "Rachel says she personally knows Beyonce _and _Jay-Z and if we all hit it off at the after show party, she's sure she can talk them into appearing on the show."

She's smiling so big and you know you're scowling back at her.

"Awesome," you say, devoid of any particular emotion.

Tomorrow night you have a fundraising ball to attend at the home of Russell Fabray. Your morning is going to be spent dress shopping for you and suit shopping for Sam. Your afternoon is going to be spent meeting with Russell Fabray's team of advisors to make sure that you're properly representing everything he stands for during the filming of the event.

You still don't really know what he stands for. The more you hear about Rachel Berry and her father's campaign though, the more sure you are that you're somehow more likely to stand for the same things that they do, than be aligned with the Fabrays.

You flinch as Holly punches you lightly on the arm again. "It _is_ awesome," she assures you, her smile growing wider as she passes around the fresh bottles of beer that the waiter has brought to your table. "Three cheers for Team Chang!"

You don't even give one cheer.

You wait for the moment to pass and you monotone your way through an explanation of yours and Sam's plans for tomorrow. Even when you mention the fact that Quinn had your silver embossed invitations especially couriered over and that she's arranged for a car to pick both you and Sam up, it does nothing to bring the excitement back to Holly's eyes.

She just lets out a long exaggerated sigh and drops her head down onto the table, muttering something about republicans and _stuffy_ and the price you pay for too tight pants and repressed libidos.

You rub her back for want of anything else to do. Tina and Mike are shooting you sympathetic gazes from across the table and Sam is just sulking silently at your side. You know that Mercedes is a _huge _Beyonce fan; if it had been you and Sam rubbing shoulders with her this weekend at the AIDS benefit, it would've earned him all sorts of hard won super-best-boyfriend-points. As it is, he's going to be trussed up tight in a tux, trying not to look too out of place as he follows you around with the one tiny and pathetic camera the Fabray estate has agreed to allow you to bring, probably wishing just as hard as you are that he'd scored a place on the other team instead.

You're about to ask Mike if there's a place for the both of you on his team if you change your last names to Chang, when Holly pops her head up from the table and reaches again for her beer. Her other arm slides around your shoulders and pulls you in tight to her side. "You really _do_ need to arouse Quinn," she says, and you know you've heard that before.

"I haven't had a chance to mention Rachel yet," you start to explain, but she clenches her grip around your shoulders a little tighter and tells you that's not what she meant.

"Honestly Chica," she intones, her voice dropping down to serious, "I think the only way you're gonna compete with Berry for viewers, is if you can get Quinn to do the nasty on tape."

You know your mouth is hanging open.

You look to Sam and he's perfectly mirroring your mouth's position.

"You… _What_?" You ask, not sure that you've understood exactly what she meant.

She clings onto you a moment longer before releasing you with a push in Sam's direction, the laughter breaking free from her throat as she sees the effect her words have had on you.

"Your face, Britt!" she exclaims, quite obviously delighted with herself. "You really think I'd make you sleep with a republican, just for viewing figures?"

You don't know what you think. Holly often has unorthodox ways of going about her business and the current situation _is_ kind of dire. She laughs again and you feel inclined to laugh with her, even if you are still recovering from the shock of her suggestion. She assures you that's not what she meant at all, and that she really is interested in getting into the Quinn versus Berry angle of the feature and seeing if we can't maybe ruffle some of Quinn's tightly wound feathers along the way.

You remember Quinn from yesterday.

You think back to her clipped tones over lunch earlier today where she acted as if nothing untoward had happened between the two of you, while the whole time barely bothering to lift her gaze and meet your eyes. She'd told you that the ball was going to be spectacular, she'd given you the details of what equipment you'd be permitted to bring on site, and then she'd cried off your afternoon schedule of events on the basis of feeling under the weather.

You're really not sure that you want to ruffle her feathers. Or arouse her. Or anything.

You listen to what Holly has to say though. You take note of the tidbits Tina and Mike throw out about what they know from the high school years and the root of the Berry/Fabray rivalry. You think they say it started out in debate club sometime in sophomore year. Then Mike insists no, it was the start of freshman year when they both went up for the solo in the school production and Rachel sang Quinn clean off of the stage. It's Holly who interrupts and asks, "What about the boyfriend?"

Mike looks at Tina, Tina says, "Finn?"

"Hudson? He seems pretty solid," Mike adds. "What about him?"

"Just a hunch," Holly says, downing the last of the beer in her bottle. "But when two girls bitch-fight their way all through high school, there's usually a boy involved in there somewhere."

…

You're not sure how long you've been sprawled across the couch, vaguely listening to reruns of the Super Sweet Sixteen late night marathon running on the TV in the background, but the crook in your neck when you try to move lets you know it's probably been too long. You hadn't meant to park your ass there and leave it there for quite so long, but after you stumbled halfway-to-merry from the cab and landed in your living room, the trek to the bedroom had seemed like a trek way too far to make.

Your business dinner had ended on a high note.

Holly had pulled you aside while you were waiting for your cab to arrive and assured you that even though things weren't looking so hot for you and Sam right now in terms of your team's current performance, she has nothing but complete confidence in you and your ability to deliver when it comes to the finished product.

"There's a reason I put you in with the republicans," she said, dropping her voice down out of earshot of the others. "You're the only girl I know who can make the impossible, possible. With you Fabray's at least got a shot, and that say's a whole lot when she's up against Rachel Berry."

The compliment to your abilities had made you blush. It still makes you blush. It also leaves you ass-parked on the sofa for what feels like hours as you contemplate just how it is you're supposed to make Quinn seem more appealing than a dancing Disney flash-mob and hobnobbing with Jay-Z.

Achieving the impossible is one thing; achieving the outright ridiculous is something else entirely.

You gently massage the crick in your neck as you reach across to the coffee table to pick up your cell-phone, and when you press a button to light up the display it lets you know that it's just as late as you imagined it to be. You haven't drunk enough to suffer a hangover in the morning, but if you don't get to bed soon you're going to pay for it tomorrow when your schedule looms large before you and you have huge giant bags bulging out from under your eyes.

Still.

Your fingers take you to your text message inbox without thought. You have to scroll past your Mom and Holly and Sam, but it only takes you a second and then you're there.

"_I really like your hat."_

It still makes you smile now. It possibly makes you smile even higher now.

Not only because the five beers you've consumed tonight have left your edges feeling just a little bit fuzzy and warm, but also because.

She hadn't kissed you then. She has now.

And she really likes your hat.

If you weren't holding your phone it would be a perfect face palming moment, because.

You really like her. You really, _really_, like her.

Your warm and fuzzy fingers are typing out a day-late reply to her message before the rest of you has even caught up to what is occurring. You pause before you hit send though. You think.

Yet all you can think of is the truth of what you've typed.

"I really like you."

And you really mean it.

…

You're sound asleep in your bed when your phone rings, startling you awake. The clock on your wall has ticked round to long past 3 AM and it takes you a moment to orientate yourself before you reach across for your cell. You don't look at the caller ID, you don't care who it is, you just want the noise to stop.

When you hear her voice, you care.

"_Britt_," she says once, and then, when you don't answer right away, "_BrittBritt?_"

She sounds a thousand miles away, and you can hear distant beats in the background, like music, but just base thumping out a continuous tune.

"Santana?" you ask, even though you know.

"_I'm so wasted, Britt. So fucking wasted_." You hear what sounds like a pained groan and you sit up in your bed. Alert.

"Santana," you say again, "are you okay? Where _are_ you?"

When she laughs you don't relax. "_I'm high as a fucking kite baby, where are you?"_

You don't tell her you're in bed. You don't tell her anything. You ask instead if she's with Quinn; you don't know what's going on, but it's obvious she's managed to put away a hell of a lot more than the five beers you managed to sink this evening, and your first priority is making sure that she's okay.

She laughs again at your mention of Quinn and it hurts your ears. "_Quinn doesn't like me_," she says. Then she stops laughing. You listen to her silence, you count the beats in the background.

"Santana?"

When she speaks again she sounds as if she's slipped even further away and you have to strain your ears to hear her. "_She's here, somewhere, I think._" Another beat passes. You almost feel like she's said everything she's going to say. And then.

"_Did you mean it?_"

You remember.

Your text.

At least it makes some kind of sense now as to why she's calling you in the middle of the night. You assume she's only just found the message. That she's out partying again, and she's ignored her phone, and now she's seen the message. And now.

You don't answer.

It isn't fair. When you typed the message it was a light reply to her liking your hat, it was in the moment and awash with fuzzy feelings. Now that she's asking you, now that she's speaking to you, it's not so light anymore. And you don't know where she is or what she's doing, or even maybe _who _she's doing, and it isn't fair.

"_Britt?_" she says, and you know you have to answer something.

"Of course I meant it," you rush out. "You're really cool, Santana, I like hanging out with you."

"_Yeah?"_

You confirm and she falls silent again. It's another moment where you wish that you could see her; that you could puzzle out her reactions by looking at her face and seeking out her eyes.

You settle for asking again if she's okay.

"_It's fine, Britts," _she says, _"everything's fine."_

Yet her words sound like an ache and you want to know why she seems so sad.

You don't get to ask.

The beats in the background are fast becoming the foreground and when she speaks again there's no longer any trace of the sorrow that had laced her tone with sadness. _"I gots to go," _she throws out; back to business and flying high. _"Shit's about to get real here; ain't no way I'm missing that."_

You have no idea what she's talking about. You can hear the noise louder than ever now, you can almost pick out a tune of some sort, but you can't see what she's seeing and you don't know what shit's real.

You don't get to ask.

She cuts the connection and you just stare at your phone.

…

The irritation you're feeling is directly related to the complete lack of sleep you had last night, you know that, yet the knowledge isn't enough to wipe the scowl from your face.

You're raging inside. You're absolutely fucking raging.

You spent your morning traipsing around stores with Sam and Mercedes while they picked out the perfect blue ball gown for you to dress up in tonight, you even acquiesced to Mercedes request and went to the salon to get your hair and nails done. You didn't let them cut your hair - you _like _your hair long - but you did let the stylist weave your locks into some sort of modern yet elegant rendition of an up-do. You also sat hiding your scowl while the manicurist fussed at your fingers and made snide comments about your bitten down nails.

Now though.

It's the first time you've met Russell Fabray and you don't like him. You didn't like him the minute he ran his appraising eyes up and down your form before he'd even heard your name. You didn't like him when his voice had come out laden down with false charm and he'd insisted that meeting you finally was all his pleasure. And now that he's just called you _little lady_, you like him even less.

You make your point again.

"If we're not allowed to film inside the _actual_ ballroom though, there's really no reason for us being here at all."

He wants you to stay outside in the reception hall. He wants you to collect a few sound-bites from his arriving guests about just how awesome he is and what a fine and dandy senator he'll make, and then he wants you to leave.

With your up-do and your nails and your half-a-month's salary dress that you'll never wear again.

You explain to him how you already went over this with his people this afternoon. You explain that Sam's only working with the smallest and most unobtrusive excuse you could find to still call a camera, just as he'd requested. You explain that you're actually here for Quinn.

He simply smiles like he's laughing at you and it makes you want to scream.

You're inside his office; it's twice the size of the one at his apartment where Quinn is staying and you're sure that the acoustics would be just perfect for you to really let one rip. You're not getting anywhere any other way and you honestly feel as if a scream might help to relieve some of the coiled and twisted tension you've been feeling since last night.

You didn't sleep again after the phone call.

You didn't even really attempt to close your eyes again.

You had forgotten for a moment, amongst all of the magic, all the things that you'd seen before. You forgot how Santana had looked with her tongue trailing down that other woman's neck at the club, you forgot that you don't even know enough to know if she could even ever be yours; if she's already somebody else's. If she's Quinn's.

The long hours after the call had reminded you of all of that. They had dulled the sensation of her lips pressed against your lips.

"Miss Pierce?"

Russell Fabray's special brand of condescending charm calls back your attention and you begrudgingly turn your eyes back his way. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he says, "I'll have a word with Eduardo, get his opinion. If he thinks it'll work, I'll take it under consideration. Okay, _dear_?"

You smile like you hate him. You don't know who Eduardo is, but if he's anything like Quinn's father, then you already hate him too.

You try not to think too much about Mike and Tina and Beyonce and Jay-Z while you stand there waiting, but it's hard in your current state of bad mood to not fall back towards the bitter. Holly is wrong, you're _sure _of it. There's no way possible, not even for you, to make this pompous asshole look like anything other than what he is. When your viewers connect him to Quinn she won't stand a chance in hell, no matter how many pretty smiles she flirts towards the camera.

You stand from your chair when Russell walks back in to the room, and it's almost comical how fast you want to sit down again. He has Eduardo with him and it's like looking at a carbon copy, but much older and more manly, of the woman who's been steadily tormenting all of your thoughts.

Eduardo is obviously Santana's father. You remember that he's something to do with Russell's campaign and when you're introduced it is all confirmed. Eduardo Lopez, campaign strategist for the biggest douche on the planet.

But he's Santana's father. It's confusing you whether you should like him on the basis of that fact, or whether you should hate him on the basis of Russell Fabray.

He tells you with what seems like sincerity that he's pleased to meet you and he asks what he can do to help. It puts him in the plus column so far, and when he actually listens to what you're saying, when he actually manages to grasp the concept of what you were explaining to Russell and agrees that some access to the ballroom would be beneficial to the cause, you contemplate putting him in the plus column permanently.

You want to high five him. Instead you say thank you.

You bid goodbye to Russell's smarmy smile, you actually smile in genuine gratitude at Santana's father, and you make your way back out to the reception hall to relay the news to Sam. His tuxedo isn't in vain and neither is your up-do and dress; you're going to the ball.

The most excitement you can muster is for the knowledge that at least you'll be able to do your job properly.

…

It's hard not to feel a sense of genuine excitement when Quinn leads you and Sam into the ballroom and your breath first catches in your throat. It's amazing. Not only the grandeur of the surroundings, but the decorations and twinkling lights that have been strewn about to mark the occasion. It's like something you would see in a movie, or in a magazine, or perhaps in your dreams.

Only in your dream the crowd would be different. This crowd is almost old enough to make your grandparents seem like spring chickens. When you and Sam had been greeting them before the ball kicked off, collecting amusing anecdotes about the Fabray family and Quinn growing up and what a truly delightful addition Russell will make to the US Senate, you swear you almost fell asleep twice. It's like a perfect fairytale setting without any of the magic.

You're still somewhat excited though. Quinn seems to be in an excellent mood this evening and she seems much closer to the girl you met on your first day of filming, both friendly and warm, rather than the girl who ordered you out of her car just a couple of days ago. Her eyes are alight, her deep green dress is simply stunning and she hasn't let go of your arm once since you entered the ballroom.

"Isn't it just perfect, Brittany?" she asks you, and in the moment you're inclined to agree.

She lets go of you now and you seek out Sam's side instead. Quinn is going to give an opening address, introduce her father and then they are going to officially open the ball with the first dance. It's not Beyonce and Jay-Z, not by a long shot, but it's something at least and that's better than nothing.

You wait until Sam lowers the small camera he's toting, and you ask him what he thinks so far, whether you've got anything that'll impress Holly yet.

"I think I saw Clint Eastwood," he tells you, and when you offer him a blank look he points out someone who'd make your great-_great_-grandparents look youthful. You shrug your shoulders and he affects some sort of accent before asking you to make his day.

"We don't have anything, do we?" you ask.

"We can try and sell it to Holly as a geriatric flash-mob recreating the civil war era? It's not Disney, but…"

His words trail off and the last of your excitement trickles away with it. The room is still pretty, the lights are still twinkling, but you know it's not enough. Even as Quinn takes the stage, as she soaks up the applause and makes the audience laugh along to her inside jokes about her and her dear old daddy_, _you know that you're going to lose this thing.

It's perhaps that sense of knowledge that first makes you drift away. You say to Sam that you're going to search out the bathroom, but you know that you're not. You follow one of the champagne waiters as he meanders through the crowd and out into the kitchen and from there you let your feet carry you to the open French doors which lead out onto a large patio.

There are three men in kitchen white's standing around smoking and when they catch sight of you they all seek to stub out what's left of their cigarettes and rush back inside.

The fresh air is nice. Even tinged with the last wisps of tobacco smoke, you appreciate the air out here more than you do the air inside. In there you're being crushed by the weight of Holly's expectation and your premonitions of failure, out here, for a moment, you can forget about all of that. You can look up at the moon and the stars and sky and you can just breathe.

There's a long row of trees rising up on your right hand side around the edge of the patio area, and the very top of the tree line is just edging out your full view of the moon. There's a paved pathway that looks as if it cuts in between the trees though, and you only pause for a second, throwing one quick glance back at the open doors to the house, before you decide to see where it leads you.

…

It doesn't take you very far. It quite literally just twists around one side of the house before it comes to an abrupt end at a small gazebo. It's white and wooden and just like the interior of the ballroom, its ceiling is strung with what looks like thousands upon thousands of tiny white fairy lights. You catch your breath again because it's beautiful.

You hold your breath because you see _her. _

You wondered, all day, ever since you picked out your own dress, if she would be here; what she would be wearing, how pretty she would look. They were thoughts you ignored, hopes you didn't let infiltrate your outer conscious.

You don't even know if you want to see her. Yet.

You want to see her so bad.

You creep the few more steps forward, trying not to disturb her with your footsteps, to not spook her with your sudden presence.

She's not wearing a ball gown at all. She has sweat pants on again, her hair is a mess on top of her head, and she has the cutest pair of glasses perched somewhere close to the end of her nose. She's reading a book, reclining down on one of the seats that looks to follow the angles of the gazebo, and she's not at all aware that you're watching her.

You pause. You freeze. You stare.

You think it's perhaps the longest time you've had to look at her unseen, and you take each second of each minute you stand there to fully drink her in.

She really is beautiful.

Like this, under-dressed, unassuming, unaffected by anything around her… You just.

You lift your hand to your chest just to feel the truth of what your heart is trying to tell you.

You don't even focus on the fact that you're moving forward again until your feet catch on a twig beneath you on the path and you hear the traitorous crack and the snap of it breaking. You watch as her eyes widen on the sound.

She pauses. She freezes. She stares. And then she smiles.

It feels like the largest smile you've ever seen forms on her lips and you can't help but wonder if it's the sudden surprise of seeing you here in her secret little garden retreat that makes her appear so happy.

"Brittany," she says, and you don't want anyone else to ever say your name again.

You lift your hand to say hi. You stand bashful, waiting, wondering whether to take the rest of the steps forward and join her inside the gazebo.

"You look…"

Her words start to trail off and you do step forward.

"You look so _pretty_."

Your face flushes and you feel the heat from her statement pinking your ears.

"Thank you," you tell her, and when she puts down her book and swings her legs from the seat and down to the floor you take it as an invitation to go closer. She doesn't stand. She doesn't take her eyes off of you as you walk slowly towards her.

"Do you wanna sit?" she asks, indicating the empty space next to her, but your dress isn't made so much for sitting so you settle instead for leaning up against the wooden post just off to her side. You angle yourself towards her and she does the same to you.

"So," you say.

You want to ask about last night's phone call. You want to ask so much.

"I thought you'd be here," she says, running her eyes over your dress again. "Didn't think I'd get to see you, but…" Again she trails off her words. She looks to the floor, back up at you, "I'm glad I did."

When she shrugs, you sigh.

"How come you aren't you in there?" you ask her. And then, as an afterthought, "I met your dad."

Her eyes go wide again. Maybe even wider than when she'd first seen you.

"You did?"

She sounds nervous and you quickly assure her it was only brief. "He helped out a lot with access to the ball," you say, "He seems like an okay kind of guy."

"Yeah, he's real swell. Did you meet his boss?"

You think back to Russell and you can't help the look that crosses your face. "Sure. Quinn's dad is…" You try and find a nice way to say it, but she interrupts you before you have the chance.

"He's an asshole; an absolute fucking creeper."

You look at her curious, waiting for her to go on. "I really can't stomach him and he can't stand me. I'm not exactly invited tonight." She smiles her less-than a smile, her not really a smile, "Which is great, 'cause I hate pretty much everyone in the room anyway."

You don't know what to say to that and so you stay quiet. You hadn't been excited by anyone in the room, you're still mostly just bummed out that you don't have better subject matter to work into your feature, but you don't know enough to actively hate them all. They're all old and kinda boring, but not really offensive.

"Why are you still here then?" you ask, because if she doesn't need to be.

"Nothing better to do," she informs you. "My aunt is sick, so my abuela's out of town. Everyone else is here."

The sounds of silence envelope you then and you stand for a moment just listening to the noises of the crickets in the bushes and the night birds in the trees. When you go to speak, to ask her about the book she's reading, she begins speaking too.

You both stop. She nods to you, you nod to her.

"Look, about last night," she eventually says.

"Last night," you repeat.

"It was really late. I shouldn't have called you then."

She isn't looking at you now, her gaze seems stuck to the floor in front of her, and you shift to catch her attention. Not far, you just hoist yourself up onto the railing and rest your feet down on the cushion next to her. You lean back against the wooden post behind you and it's the perfect angle from which to see her. "Why did you call?" you ask when she catches your eye, because you're still not sure.

She shrugs.

She doesn't answer you; she just reaches forward and starts to slip your dress shoes from your feet. "No shoes on the furniture, Britt. That's like a cardinal sin around here."

Your feet are often incredibly ticklish, and when her fingers trail across your skin you can't help but flinch a little and release a short laugh. "San," you say, and it comes out sounding long and whining. It makes her raise an eyebrow at you as she holds on tight to your foot.

"Say that again," she says.

You hadn't even thought about it. It just slipped from your lips.

You don't speak and she doesn't release your foot. It's like you're trapped inside a stare and neither of you can look away. You're still not sure what she's thinking though. Her eyes are shining at you, as dark as they are, as shadowed as you are beneath the twinkling lights and the night time darkness, her eyes are shining.

"San?" you eventually say again, almost a whisper, and it makes her smile.

"I like that," is all she says.

She looks away but as she does she pulls your feet further forward and into her lap. It unsteadies your balance and you have to reach up and put your hand against the post to stop yourself falling from your ledge; but you like this new position. You like her hands on you even in this most innocuous of ways; her fingers aren't moving, they just lay still on your skin. But it's enough. You feel connected.

Connected enough to listen to the crickets some more and not have it be uncomfortable. In fact, you're so comfortable with this silent touching, that it surprises you when her voice starts up again.

"I just wanted to talk to you."

Oh…

Oh.

"Oh," you say, the realisation of that statement sinking in. You want to say more, to not frame her words with such an empty reply, but it takes you a minute to think. To take it in. All you manage, and it's not your best, is _why?_

You expect the shrug and another non-answer. It doesn't surprise you. You're learning though that she does speak. That she takes her time and she thinks through her words long after you would assume she's stopped; but if you wait, if you listen, she does speak.

When her hands release your feet you want to sigh.

She stands and stretches, pushing her glasses until they rest back up on her nose properly. She walks across the floor of the gazebo until she's standing opposite you and she lifts herself up on the side railing to perfectly mirror your position, her bare feet dropping down to rest on the seating. "Do I need to have a reason?" she asks eventually, and you're glad you waited.

You act as though you're thinking it through, as if you wouldn't want to wish to talk to her at every given opportunity. It may be like talking your way through a maze, you may sometimes feel as if you know less coming out than you did going in, but you can't imagine that you would ever not want to talk to her. Or to listen to her. Or even, just to look at her.

The moon is hovering on her side of the sky and with the lights twinkling up above her, woven in and out of the beams which make up the roof, she looks like.

You don't have words. You don't have coherent thoughts to put into words.

"No," you tell her, because it's the simplest way to say what you want to say.

She nods to herself as if what you've said is all she needed to hear and then she settles herself back against the post, again mirroring your opposite position. You watch her take in a large breath and when she exhales you see her shoulders slump.

She looks tired but you don't ask that. You don't want to hear about a rough night. You don't want to know anything that happened beyond when she wanted to speak to you.

"Quinn and I are friends again," you say instead, "At least I think we are."

"I'm sure you are," she insists from across the distance. "I told you, she freaks at everyone when she's backed into a corner." She thinks for a minute and then she adds, "She's a little like a rabid dog that way."

You imagine Quinn snarling and foaming at the mouth and you can see that.

You still don't get it though.

"I still don't get it," you say to her, because you really don't, "it was just reading_._"

"It really wasn't," she replies. That's all that she says though and you assume she doesn't want to pursue the topic any further.

It's like secrets inside of secrets and you suspect you really don't know anything.

It should probably worry you more or stand as some kind of warning to back away from the woman in front of you, yet with every breath you take, you feel yourself getting closer. Not physically, what you feel is far beyond physical; it's that same feeling you get when you look up at the night sky and try to count the stars. Or when you stand in front of the ocean and try and number the waves.

Like there's always more to come. Like something never ending.

She drops herself forward off the railing now and starts to stretch her arms up over her head again. If you knew her better, you'd say she looks not only tired, but somewhat agitated. Her eyes catch yours and then slide away. They catch yours again and she stops for a moment. She turns, she walks back to her spot next to the railing. She catches your eye.

You wonder if she actually does want to say something more about Quinn. If she's just working her way up to telling you something she's not so sure about sharing.

It looks cute. She looks cute. When she takes off her glasses and folds them into her hands, you're not sure if it's because she's so nervous of what she's about to say and she needs something to fiddle her fingers with, or if she's so nervous of what she's about to say and she doesn't want to see you properly when she says it. Either way she looks nervous. And cute.

Her words are just a whisper though and you have to ask her to speak again.

"I visited my Mom today."

You feel your head tilt to the side and you're trying to work out the significance of what she just told you. It feels weighty. You feel as if she's sharing something important with you again.

"Okay," you say, and you say it softly.

Your instincts are telling you soft.

Yet maybe you said it wrong because she doesn't speak more.

She's like ten parts silence to every word spoken and it makes you cherish the spoken words even when you don't understand them. Like now. You won't push her to reveal a mystery, you won't pull apart her secrets when you already feel as though she's aching to reveal herself, piece by silent piece.

It's you who slides down from your resting place now, you who crosses the distance of the gazebo floor to stand by her side in the moonlight. She's _so _incredibly beautiful, almost unbelievably so, and you can't help the shy grin that tickles your lips when you reach her side.

You want to touch her. To hold all of her secrets and keep her safe.

When her hand leaves her lap and she entangles her fingers with yours, you wonder if she wants the same. You can't ask her; you're still settling the enormity of the feeling inside of yourself, you can't frame it in words for her yet.

You can look into her eyes though.

She's not wearing her glasses anymore.

You can see the depths of her and you can feel the connection. It hums just like the crickets in the bush and you swear your heart leaps higher than any grasshopper ever could.

"Santana," you say, because it seems so long since you said her name.

"Hey," she tells you. She puts the glasses down out of her other hand, the one not held in yours, and she runs her fingers softly across the fabric of your dress. You feel the muscles in your stomach flutter beneath her touch. "I love this dress," she says, and the shy grin tickles your lips all the way up into a smile.

"Thank you."

She scrunches her nose up at your gratitude and you bet that if the lights on the roof were just a little brighter, you'd be able to pick out a flush on her skin. She stares at you. You hold her gaze.

Maybe it's the way she smiles. Maybe it's the way she melts you.

"What is this, San?" you say, you whisper. You breathe.

You stop breathing.

Her eyes don't leave you, but her smile changes. You see the way it slides from happy to sad and you want to take the words back. You don't want to hear her answer.

You feel the fingers held in yours grip a touch tighter before she releases you.

She looks to the ground, she looks up at the sky, she rests on you.

She's still smiling, but now it's neither happy nor sad or anything you can even begin to understand. You know she's going to speak and you know you won't like it.

"This, Brittany S Pierce," she says, looking deep into your eyes, "is every single thing that I'm not allowed."

It feels like you're still holding your breath. Like your chest is tight and your heart's stopped beating, and you never knew, _never_, that such simple words could hurt like this. "Because of Quinn?" you ask, needing to at least understand something.

She looks hurt.

"No."

She folds her arms across her chest and you reach up to pull them down again. When you pull she loses her balance and she slips forward off of her perch on the gazebo. You step back, she steps forwards. She puts her hand up to stop herself from crashing into you, and you put your hand up to steady her.

She lets go first. "Look, Britt," she says, only she's focused on her feet and not looking at you at all, "I'm not…"

She pauses, she takes a deep breath, in and out, she lifts her eyes to meet yours again, "You have to understand, this can'tbe who I am."

You hope you look as confused as you feel because there's no way she's getting away with that one. "Huh?" you ask, and you know that you're frowning.

"This," she tries to explain and you just shake your head. "You know what I'm saying Brittany, I can't… I don't. Look, I like you, I do, but this isn't…"

Her words trail off and you don't feel inclined to help her find them.

She's lying. You know it. She knows it.

This _is_.

It exactly is.

And that's why she's freaking out and telling you it isn't. You don't get why, you suspect that maybe it's something to do with the rigid Lopez Family Laws that she mentioned when she spoke before of her lack of freedom; maybe falling in love is against the Lopez constitution. Maybe that's what she went to see her Mom about. Maybe that's what she was trying to tell you.

It doesn't matter though, because that's what this is; _falling in love_. Every time you think of her and find your smile, you're sure of it.

You lean back against the gazebo now. You pull yourself up onto the edge again and rest your hands on the side. You don't expect to feel her hands cover yours, and when you look up she's stepped right inside of your space. "I'm sorry," she whispers and you're not sure if you were meant to hear her; if she's more sorry for you or for herself. "We can still be friends though, right?" she asks you, her voice still hushed and quiet.

"I'm an awesome friend," you tell her.

She's not moved back from your space and you have nowhere to go. Her hands are still holding you where her words say she doesn't want you, and when her gaze drops from your eyes to your lips you can feel the pressure in her fingers pressing down against your own.

"I'm a terrible friend," she says, her eyes lifting, "but I can try; for you."

Her left hand leaves yours and rises up to stroke a pattern down the side of your cheek. She looks like she has a thousand words she wants to say to you and you wish you knew the way to set them free. You breathe in deep when the pad of her thumb smoothes across the expanse of your lips. You dart out your tongue, you taste her skin.

She pulls away. You lock eyes.

When she says your name, you slip down from your perch and when she drops her gaze to your lips once more, when you drop your gaze to hers, you know that you're lost. You know that no matter what she says about friends and what can and can't be had, you know that there's no denying this.

She kisses you first as if to confirm it.

Her lips are soft, just as you remember, and when she doesn't pull away in the same second she reaches you, you let out a sigh; of thanks, of more, of _please more_.

Her hands come up and cup your face, and when she does pull back, it's only to say your name again before she reaches forward and encloses your lips with hers. You take a moment - being kissed by her is something to savour - but your hands won't stay by your sides and you slide one to the front of her t-shirt to pull her even closer and the other you lift to tangle in the mess of hair atop her head. You run your tongue across her lips because you need more. You need her to open up to you, and when she does, when you feel her tongue slide inside your mouth and claim you, it's not so much a sigh as a gasp that finds its way from your throat and out into the night air.

It's a feeling you don't want to ever stop.

There's a burning slow intensity to your kiss and you can feel your pulse racing through the whole of your body. Her hands are still cupping your face as she kisses you and it's the most intimate moment you think you've ever experienced. Kisses have never felt like something holy before. They've never made you want to cry when you lose contact.

She breaks the kiss.

You say _Santana, _but she only rests her forehead against yours and she won't open her eyes.

You open your arms and pull her against you until her face is turned towards your neck and it's the closest you've ever held her. It's not a hug; it feels like so much more than that, and you stay still against the ledge, just content to have her in your arms. When she sighs you want to hold on tighter, yet you know she's asking you to let go.

She leans across you and picks up her glasses, but she doesn't put them on and she doesn't look you in the eye.

"We can't do that again," she says, shaking her head slowly, and you're sure you both still know that she's lying.

Again you don't question her, you say what's important, "We are friends though, right?"

Her eyes flick up to you quick and her brow furrows, "You still want to be?" she asks, as if it's a choice.

"Sure," you say. "Someone has to teach you how to be an awesome friend, right?"

Her eyes flick to your lips again and you know you're still smiling from her kiss; it's her hand that reaches out though. She trails it across your dress and you guess that she really does like it. When she keeps moving until she takes your hand back in hers, you feel for certain that she likes you.

She says _deal_, but she isn't shaking on it.

She keeps her hand in yours and you feel just like you're standing at the edge of the ocean, about to keep count of the waves.

…

You're in the car next to Sam, on your way home from the ball, and he hasn't spoken to you for over an hour. It'd had been him that'd eventually found you, out in the gazebo, and it'd been him who'd told you in words most unimpressed that you were supposed to be here working.

_Together. _

He has a totally valid point and you haven't said anything except to apologise. You'd had to apologise to Quinn too, and you're not sure if either of them believe the excuse that you got completely lost on your way to the bathroom. He huffs out a pretty standard goodbye when the car pulls up at his and Mercedes house, and even when you tell him that you'll meet tomorrow for lunch and to review the footage, he doesn't grace you with his usual smile. "We're sinking here, Britt," is all he says, and again he has a totally valid point.

Points which you can't think about to consider. You can only think of one point.

Santana had left you alone in the gazebo after what was perhaps the most romantic proposal of friendship ever sealed with a kiss, but you just couldn't bring yourself to return inside and get back to work. When you're alone with Santana, when it's just you and her and the world fades to a pinpoint, you feel as if you're standing in a place of perfection. When the world expands again, you're left questioning everything.

And you don't want to question anything tonight.

Tonight you feel like you fell in love.

Tomorrow you'll deal with the consequences.

…


	6. When Brittany Met Rachel

You can tell that Sam is still a little bummed out at you even if he won't admit it. You know him well enough to recognise the truth behind his eyes, and his eyes are dimmed down despondent and his smile isn't sparkling. He usually has the biggest smile out of anyone you know; his lips are like actual elastic and they stretch his happiness wide across his face at the smallest provocation. Yet today, this evening, you can't get a laugh out of him and all but his most smallest of smiles seem to have gone AWOL.

It has you somewhat subdued too.

Sam is your best friend since that time when you'd first really learnt what having a friend meant, and being the cause of his current discontent does not make you happy.

You've been brainstorming something fierce. Mercedes had text you this morning to let you know that lunch would be dinner and that Mike and Tina would be joining you this evening, and you spent all the hours of the day intervening just trying to find that spark which would set your show on fire. You're happy for the other team, sure, but if you have to sit there again and listen to the greatness of their experiences compared to the mediocre snooze-fest that is fast becoming yours, then you think you may actually scream for real.

You know you can do this. You just have to find that angle.

You have ideas. Like, you know you have to move Quinn far outside her comfort area if you're going to catch the kind of footage that will invigorate your audience, and you _do_ have some plans for that. But still. It's kind of hard to cheer up Sam when you can't really cheer yourself.

A part of you - a large part - wants to call Santana. You know her voice would definitely constitute cheering, and just the thought flirts a smile onto your face, yet… The world has expanded and your questions have returned, and you really don't know if you _should _call her.

You're friends now. Friends call.

Only you still haven't managed to kid yourself that this is about friendship.

So you don't call. You just think about it, a lot, and your face flirts with smiling.

It's Mercedes voice that sounds out loud and breaks the silence which has settled over the lounge. You watch her lean over the back of the sofa and ruffle Sam's hair as she speaks, and you're pleased that at least someone can cut through his gloom and get his lips stretching. When she says something about an extra one coming for dinner, your lips stretch up into a smile too.

Mercedes has the coolest friends. She enrolled in courses at UCLA's Music Department when you'd all arrived vagabond and fresh from Lima to Los Angeles, and her immediate peer group includes singers and musicians and an endless array of really talented performing artists. You imagine she lives a life similar to the one you would've carved out for yourself at Juilliard, and getting to partake in it still, even though you chose a different direction, is something that you always enjoy. It also helps that you and Sam work at MTV; Mercedes friends are like readymade fans and nights when you all get together are like giant funfests full of mutual respect and appreciation. You love what they do, they love what you do. It works well.

Mercedes is shaking her head though as you suggest the names of who you suspect your extra guest might be, "Not tonight, Britt," she informs you, heading back towards the kitchen area. "Tina called, the guest is hers."

You look slowly across at Sam. Sometimes you think you might have a psychic connection, like blonde-haired-blue-eyed-spidey-senses or something, and this is one of those times. Like, it could be anyone, maybe Tina's cousin is back in town and she forgot to mention it, or maybe Mike's been dancing this afternoon and he's bringing over one of your mutual buddies to sway away this Sunday evening.

Sam's looking at you with that dipped eyebrow, slanted mouthed look which tells you he's puzzling over the same something as you though, and you just know.

"They wouldn't, right?" you say to him, trying to shake the suspicion from your mind.

He shouts out to Mercedes at the same time as your phone vibrates and alerts you to a new text message. When you read it's from Tina, you open it immediately.

"_Sorry, Britt. She insisted!"_

Your eyes turn to Mercedes as she shrugs at Sam.

"I don't know, someone called _Rachel? _Hey wait, isn't that…"

You tune out on her words. You grip your phone a little tighter.

You're curious, sure, you've heard too much to not be curious, but this is all sorts of peculiar. You're on Quinn's team, you're rocking the vote for the republicans, yet you have the feeling, mostly confirmed, that you're about to sit down and eat dinner with the democrat's daughter.

_Consorting with the enemy _is the phrase that floods your mind.

...

Rachel Barbara Berry.

She's the only thing left flooding your mind and you're scared you might be losing it.

Your mind.

Maybe your hearing. You've been detecting a faint buzz in your left ear since you sat down for dinner and you're certain that the damage is due to the constant outpouring of decibels from the woman at your side. She's phenomenal. You're just not sure that's a good thing.

Tina had been first through the door upon their arrival and you recognised the apology that was written all over her face. She mouthed the words _so sorry _and then you'd been introduced.

It had sounded like a parakeet being strangled.

"_Brittany S Pierce!"_

Or maybe how Lord Tubbington had sounded that one time with the Christening.

Rachel Barbara Berry, as it turns out, is one of your biggest fans. When she realised who it was that was leading the rival team on _her _show, she had been adamant that she just had to meet you. It was Tina and Mike's mistake to mention to her that you were all getting together this evening, and the rest is history.

Mostly Rachel's history. She may have been super keen in that first five minutes to know everything about you - _And, Brittany, I _mean _everything - _but ever since it's been all Berry all of the time. You don't even get the time to question Mike and Tina about Jay-Z _or _Beyonce. It really is just Berry. She has two gay dads and a dog and cat and a whole room dedicated to the ribbons and trophies she won all throughout her high school performing career. She's currently studying at _the _most prestigious school of performing arts in all of New York, and really, it's only because she heeded her father's call for vocal support during this election season, that she's not currently treading the boards as lead in her first off Broadway production, garnering the kinds of reviews that first time performers can only often dream about gathering. "It's written in the stars, Brittany," she'd trilled out into your ear, _"_and all of them are golden!"

It was around that time that the buzzing had started. Ever since, you've mostly concentrated on keeping your nods in time with everyone else at the table and on not engaging in conversation. It's hard. You like talking to people, especially new people with the kind of experiences that someone like Rachel has had, but you're actually genuinely scared that if you call her attention back your way, you may lose the hearing in your right ear too.

She talks more than anyone you know.

She talks about herself more than anyone you know.

It's the first time in days that you're maybe a little bit happy to be stuck on Quinn's team; your job may be hard, your job may be stressful, but you know you couldn't deal with Rachel on a permanent basis. It's not even that she's not nice, she seems really nice, she just…

"So tell me, Brittany," she asks you now, making you wince as you turn towards her. "What do you think about the possibility of me coming onto your show? Wouldn't that just be the best? I love cats, cats love me, and I really feel your audience would benefit from my vast knowledge when it comes to all things pop-culture."

Her smile is huge.

"Uh, I…" You look to Sam, he shrugs his shoulders. "I don't think that, at the moment, with the election programs; maybe we should wait until after?"

You spread your hands out in front of you and lift your shoulders, but she simply reaches out and takes one of your hands in hers. "I'm sure it won't be a problem," she insists, "and if we do have to wait until after my father's… I mean, until after the election, that'll be just fine too!"

"Fine," you say.

You pull your hand away and when Mercedes starts to clear the plates from the table, you're the first to jump up and offer to help out. You let Mike, Tina and Sam carry the conversation with them back into the lounge, while you load the dishwasher, cover up the left-overs and put away the various sauces and accompaniments back where they belong. When Mercedes pauses by the breakfast bar and just stands watching you, you know you're probably overdoing it.

"We have laundry needs doing if you're going to be avoiding all night," she says, and honestly, you actually consider it.

"I'm not technically avoiding," you say. Because technically you're helping Mercedes in the kitchen. "She's just really, really-"

"Self-involved and all sorts of diva?"

"I was going to say loud."

Mercedes laughs, you sigh, and you look about to see if there's anything else you can do to stall before you head back in.

…

You thought briefly about making coffee, but the idea of giving Rachel caffeine and perhaps energising her vocal chords into an even more excited state, soon changed your mind and had you brewing up some calming herbal tea instead. It had killed a few more minutes, yet when you returned to the lounge you'd been informed that you were simply the _greatest _because Rachel Berry's vocal chords are smitten with _all_ the teas of the herbal kind.

Mike had shot you a pained grimace and you were pleased to note that yours isn't the only team struggling under the strain of the assignment.

You had also been pleased to note that the assignment hadn't been mentioned.

Apart from one brief moment over dinner when Rachel had wanted to insist that she appear on Fondue for Two, you've managed, all of you, to not stray into work territory and that's something you believe to be for the best.

Putting a face to the name has your curiosity fully peeked, you really do want to know about Rachel and Quinn's rivalry throughout high school and beyond, but you want to hear about it from Quinn. You wouldn't be comfortable any other way, and that's why, when Rachel looks at you with an expression you haven't yet seen gracing her face and says quite succinctly, "So Brittany, how _have_ you been getting along with Quinn?" it takes you more than a moment to recover.

You weren't expecting it.

It was like a sneak attack once your guard was down.

You're still recovering now. Sam has thrown out a somewhat non-committal _she's great_, but it's you that Rachel is now staring down and it's you she wants an answer from.

You feel a little like maybe she's too invested in the answer.

"She's great," you finally say, echoing Sam's assessment.

Rachel doesn't speak right away and again you get the feeling that there's more to this than what you can see on the surface. She looks across at Tina and then slowly back to you, "I suppose," she says, with a dramatic sigh, "that Tina's filled you all in on our longstanding rivalry? We caused quite the scandal back in the day."

You know she wants you to ask and you know you're not going to.

You don't factor in Mercedes' deep love of the word _scandal. _You watch her eyes slide wide across the room, you watch as she leans forward in her chair, and you shake your head _no_.

"Scandal?" Mercedes asks, ignoring your silent request. "Sam hasn't told me _anything_ about any scandals."

Tina shrugs her shoulders at you, Mike looks like he's in pain again and Sam asks if anyone wants something else to drink from the kitchen. You just take your phone from your pocket and start checking emails. You scour Facebook for any updates from back home, you play one long muted game of Temple Run and finally, once you've exhausted all avenues of distraction, you zone back in on Rachel's ever present voice.

You think she might have been crying. Her eyes look kind of puffy anyway.

"…And that," she says now, her arm waving out in front of her in a grand theatrical swoop, "is how I wrestled victory from the jaws of defeat and bested Quinn one final time to win not only the coveted role of Evita in our senior production, but also the quite prestigious title of Beverly Hills High Senior Debating Champion of 2009."

"Oh wow, that's really great, Rachel," you say in all seriousness when she comes to a stop. "Did you make Valedictorian for your graduation too, or was that just Quinn?"

You don't particularly mean to be mean, yet you remember something Quinn said before and some part of you feels like you should come to her defence in her absence. It just slips out really, you don't necessarily realise the gravity of your words.

You watch her supremely confident smile flicker for an instant. "I really don't like to talk about that, Brittany," she implores, and you swear it's the best thing you've heard her say all night.

You say the silent _awesome _in your head and you know by Sam's look of appreciation that he's glad for what ever you've done.

Again it's Mercedes who speaks up and you really must remember to have a quiet word with her later; you need a better signal or something, because the emphatic shaking of your head really doesn't seem to be working.

"That's not a scandal," she says, laughing loudly, "our Britts made more scandal than that back home and that was _way_ before she started her own web-show."

Your headshake quickly becomes a glare and then a thankful smile when she seems to take the hint. You prefer to think of your high school years as full of incident, more than full of scandal, yet none of the incidents are ones you want aired out in front of Rachel Berry. Even Mike and Tina aren't privy to half of your hair brain schemes from back then, and you kind of want it to stay that way.

Rachel's interest is peaked though, and you feel yourself leaning back in your chair as she leans forwards in hers, "Really?" she asks, her eyebrows narrowing, "You honestly don't seem the type for scandal; what was it? Sex, drugs… rock and roll?"

"I work for MTV, Rachel, I'm not _actually_ a rock-star."

"An eating disorder then? I knew quite a few girls, really skinny like you, who had problems with their eating habits back in high school; you can tell me, I won't judge."

You are judging. Quite harshly.

When she asks _no_ you narrow your eyes.

It seems to turn the volume down a little on her voice, but it doesn't stop her questions. "That really only leaves boys then - tell me I'm right, right?"

You're almost tempted to tell her just how wrong she is.

Sam coughs loudly to cover his laughter and this time you're actually grateful when Mercedes jumps in to steer the conversation back Rachel's way.

"I still think there's gotta be more to _your_ scandal, Girl," she throws out. "No one gets that crazy over choir solos and debate topics; what was the real beef with Quinn?"

"I'm vegan, I don't do beef," Rachel says.

"I didn't ask for another run down of what you can and can't eat," Mercedes shoots back, "I asked for the dirt. What'd she do, steal your man or something?"

The look you see shoot across Rachel's face in response is perhaps the most genuine look you've seen from her all evening. It's only brief, it flashes fast across her features, yet you definitely see it. "No," she says, her tone shadowed by emotions you can't quite name, "I was the one who ended up with the man; Quinn just made sure my life was a living hell along the way. I've never forgiven her."

…

When Rachel had begun to list Quinn's _crimes against love_, you couldn't help but listen a little. It was just so 90210... It was all; she did this and then she did that and oh God, when she did this I could've _died_. Yet none of it was anything which was particularly different than the same old stuff you'd seen at your own high school. From what you know of Quinn, and from what you've been able to tell about Rachel, you can totally see how they would rub each other up the wrong way, especially with a boy involved.

The story is actually so inane to begin with, that the need to defend Quinn hasn't arisen again. You're almost tempted to reopen the browser on your phone and zone out on the constant commentary of the juiciest details of the freshman year of Rachel's high school liaisons. You're just getting ready to start up Temple Run again when your ears prick up at the changing tone of her voice.

"…So really Mercedes, I may've ended junior year victorious in the choir room, yet I was severely beaten in the affairs of the heart. I still honestly believed though that my enduring spirit and endless fortitude would be enough to overcome Quinn and eventually win back my love, and then…" She pauses momentarily and you're sure it's to make sure that everyone's eyes are resting upon her again. "…And then," she repeats, "_She _came back."

"She? Who's _she_?" Mercedes asks.

"Santana," Rachel replies, "Santana Lopez."

You put your phone down, forgotten.

You've never really taken the time to think about it before. You know, of course, that Quinn went to the same high school as Rachel, you heard of their rivalry and you know of Quinn and Santana's _friendship_, yet you hadn't clumped together the facts to picture the puzzle.

Now the puzzle just exploded in front of you and you're desperate to pick up the pieces.

You hear Sam say _Santana's cool_.

You hear Mercedes ask _Who the hell's Santana?_

You see Mike and Tina totally wrapped up in themselves, obviously not needing to hear a tale they've no doubt heard too many times before.

As for you, you just ask, "Came back from where?"

Because that's what seems important. It's easy to slide the Santana you know into their world, it's easy to picture her standing at Quinn's side in high school and sending endless barbs Rachel's way; but you know nothing of how to picture her between worlds you don't know about.

Rachel looks at you as if that's really not the important question to ask and turns her head Mercedes way instead, "Santana Lopez," she says, again pausing for the drama, "is quite possibly the purest form of evil I've ever known. We called her Satan all through the rest of school, and believe me, she more than lived up to her moniker."

You feel it in your gut first. Small yet twisting.

"That's really mean, Rachel," you say. It's nothing close to what you want to say though and you have to offer more. "Maybe you were just really irritating in high school."

Sam stifles a chuckle at your side, while Rachel dips her perfectly styled eyebrows in your direction. "Do you even know Santana?" she asks you, and that thing in your gut grows just a little larger.

"Sure," you tell her, "I think she seems really nice."

"Oh _Brittany_."

She says it like it's an act of sympathy. Her shoulders deflating, as if she can't believe the naivety of poor sweet you. "I used to think she was really nice too," she insists, "we were actually really close growing up and I'd even go so far as to say that she was once my best friend."

You know you're frowning at her, because there's no way you can picture that at all. Not in any conceivable universe.

"I know, I know," she continues, "it's hard to believe that someone like me could've been such close associates with someone like her, but I assure you that's how it was. Her family and my family were especially close back then."

You want to say _back when_?

You want to wash her mouth out for speaking of Santana the way she is.

You say nothing. Mercedes asks for more, obviously enrapt, and you just listen.

"We were close throughout grade school and even when she moved away I felt assured that our friendship would remain strong," Rachel starts. "And I tried to be there for her after, I really did, but when someone holds you down and threatens to cut your vocal chords out with the steak knife she's crazily waving in your face, well," she pauses once more and this time you're not sure that it's only for effect. She looks genuinely moved, or scared, or both, and when she speaks again you imagine it's how she'd sound naturally without all of her drama school training. "I know she went through a lot, and I'm sure parental death is always hard to take," she allows, with the smallest shrug of her shoulders, "but I _never _had a mom at all, and I'm not half as screwed up and nasty as she is."

You say nothing.

You tilt your head to the side and you know you're face is blank. You believe you heard something in that sentence which hurts.

It hurts a lot.

You're immediate impulse is to hold a hand out to Rachel; you want say something about understanding. You want to tell her that you completely get the emotion which hollowed out her words even if the source is somehow different. You can't though, not only because that emotion isn't one you're comfortable sharing with strangers, but also because.

_Santana._

You want to hold all of her secrets and keep her safe.

You remember that feeling in the gazebo. You remember her words about visiting her mom.

No one speaks for the moment and you're sure it's because no one really knows what to say. It was a sentence full of so much allusion, yet no one seems to want to be the one to ask more. When it was a tale of good versus evil, it was easy. Rachel's genuine emotion isn't so much.

"Anyway," she eventually says, clearing her throat and stopping your thoughts, "All you need to really know is that Santana isn't one to mess with; my rivalry may have been with Quinn, but Santana Lopez fast became her most loyal attack dog."

…

You feel sick.

Right on down to the very base of your soul; sick. You had only managed to stay another twenty minutes at Sam's after Santana's name had been thrown into Rachel's mix, yet even just those few short moments had been enough to twist your stomach even further. There's only two things in life which make your tummy ache this way. One of them is the threat of conflict or the thought of violence, and the other, always, is that deep kind of sadness only associated with loss.

On most days it's not even something you think about.

You had the _best _childhood. You have the most wonderful mother and the greatest grandparents and the most darling sweet little sister imaginable. All of your needs were met, all of your hopes and dreams were nurtured and you never feel as though you wanted for anything.

Except for your dad.

You have a step-dad, a really awesome step-dad, who's actually your really awesome little sister's daddy; but you never had your own dad. You have pictures of a man who looks all sorts of dashing in a uniform and you have your mom's stories from many years ago. Your grandparents assure you also that you have his piercing blue eyes and long lithe frame; but you've never had him, and sometimes, on days like today, that makes you hurt a little.

When Rachel had said she'd never had a Mom, your heart froze. When she said that Santana had lost hers, your heart broke. When she'd continued to wrap barbs around Santana's name, you had made an excuse, told Sam you'd text him later, and you had left.

Now, you're just sat with that sick feeling in your stomach.

Sick with sadness. Sick with a secret you haven't been told.

You want to reach out to Santana, you want to take her hands in yours and tell her that you get it; yet you can't, because you don't. Because none of the words which told the tale were Santana's side of her story.

Instead you hold your phone dormant in your lap. You hold yourself dormant beneath your own arms. And you think of all the things you wish you could say and all the things you can't.

…

When a knock sounds on your door, you ignore it. You're face down on the couch, Lord Tubbington has taken up residence on your back, and it's so much easier to lie despondent where you are than to take up the effort of moving.

When you hear Sam's voice sounding out your name, you sigh.

You rise slowly to give Lord T the time to dismount with as much grace as a cat that large can manage, and you make your way to the door. When you swing it open, there's Sam, six-pack of beer in hand, and that same smile you've relied on to carry you up from the depths of despair for the last fifteen years of your life.

Sometimes you think that the best thing about getting a step-dad was the birth of your sister three years after, yet other times, you're really quite sure that the best thing was moving home and landing next door to Sam. He's stood by your side through the good and the bad and you know that you can rely on him no matter what comes at you.

You're not surprised to see him now.

He'd offered you that questioning look when you'd made your excuses and left his earlier, and he knows you well enough to know part of the reason you had left.

"Beer on a school night?" you ask him in lieu of a hello, because you both have work early in the morning and it's already getting kind of late.

He laughs and tells you it's only beer-lite. "Besides," he says as you let him in through the door, "I could see the Britt-signal from miles away; I thought you might be in distress."

"I'm okay."

You lift your shoulders a little; slip on a smile.

He follows you out to the kitchen and you both park your butts on the tall stools which surround your breakfast bar. You ask if he wants a glass and his reply involves twisting the cap off the bottle and taking a long pull of the liquid inside. It works for you and you join him easily. You know he won't push you into talking about things he already knows all of the words too; sometimes you miss the dad you never had. That's all.

Today that's not all. And maybe Sam sees that. Maybe that's why he's side-eyeing you now, blowing a steady stream of air out of those beautiful big lips of his. "Spit it out, Sam," you say, interested to know what he's thinking.

He takes a moment, peeling the corner of the label away from the beer bottle he's holding before he turns himself a little more your way and sends you a soft smile. "I just want to know you're okay," he says, "we haven't hung out much lately. I worry about you."

"You worry?"

"Sure I do," he says, "and if I didn't, your Mom would kill me."

You laugh at that, because he has a point. Your mom swore your safety into his care when you first left Lima, and every time you return home she questions him to make sure he's looking out for you properly.

"I'm really fine," you assure him. "It was a little tough today, but Rachel didn't know. It doesn't matter. I'm fine."

He takes another drink from his bottle and his eyes fix across the room and out of the window. You know he has more to say. You watch his fingers still fussing at the label and you lean to the side and nudge his shoulder with yours, "What else?"

He takes his time and you do actually start to worry a little. "I don't know Britt," he says finally, "it's just with work and everything. You seem a little distracted and..."

He trails off and you urge him to tell you more.

"You know I trust you Britt and I've _always_ got your back, but I think we're tanking here."

"Right," you say, because you don't really know what else to say.

"I don't think your head's really in the game," he continues on, and it turns your head his way.

Wow.

"You don't?" you say.

"Is it?" he asks.

It's quite a question for you to consider. Things haven't been easy with Quinn, trying to keep your enthusiasm up for the job when the job isn't really enthusing you is hard, but you thought you had a grip on it. You tell him the same, you tell him that sure, maybe last night you might've wandered away from the ball and lost sight of the job, but…

It's there that you lose your words. Because this is _Sam. _And you have all of these feelings inside, all of these thoughts and these questions and these confusions, and if you can't talk your best friend about it all, if you can't ask that guy who's got your back, then who can you talk to?

You don't realise you've drained your bottle until Sam passes you another.

"Come on, Brittany," he says, nudging at your shoulder. "It can't be that bad, right?"

Maybe.

Because you can't seem to find a way to start a sentence that'll explain things.

In the end you just say her name. It is, after all, the only thing you're really sure of, and you just don't know how else to adequately explain it.

"Santana?" Sam asks, confusion coating his features. "Is this because of what Rachel said?"

You're not sure if he's means what Rachel said about Santana being a bitch or about her losing her mom. Either way you shake your head. It's really not about that at all.

He continues to fix you with his quizzical gaze, and you feel your cheeks start to flush under the scrutiny. You feel your nose twitching a little, and your lips are itching to lift at the corners, "She's really nice, Sam," you tell him, "I think I like her."

He doesn't drop the quizzical, but you see his lips lifting a little too. "You think you like her?" he questions, his voice rising higher in tone at the last. "Britt, we've hardly spent any time with her. I get that she's pretty, but…"

"She's really pretty, Sam."

"Right," he drawls out. He stops to take another slug of his beer and you quickly follow suit. It's all or nothing and you want to tell him everything. When he turns his eyes to look at you again you can't help but let your smile grow a little larger. You tell him that maybe there's something you haven't told him and then you tell him you went for coffee.

"With Santana?" he checks.

"Sure. And Thursday night we went for a drive." You shrug your shoulders and take a deep breath, "and last night, in the gazebo, I was with her then too."

It comes out quick and you don't mention kissing and you don't mention moonlight and you don't describe exactly the edge of the ocean feeling she gives you when she takes you by the hand, but you do finish your confession by telling him again that you like her. "She's really awesome, Sam, and I don't care what Rachel Berry says about her; I like her. A lot."

You nod your head to affirm your statement and he reaches for another beer.

"Wow," he says, twisting the cap, "I sure wasn't expecting that."

You want to tell him that neither were you, but more than that you want to hear what he has to say. His opinion is important to you.

He takes his time, swallowing another large mouthful of beer before releasing his words.

"And she likes you too?" he asks. He holds his hand up to stop himself as soon as the words come out though, rolling his eyes quick in your direction. "What am I saying? Of _course _she likes you; you're Brittany S Pierce, The Woman Whisperer."

You don't comment on the name he gave you back in junior year of high school. It's one of the incidents that nearly became a scandal, and all because you got confused by your calendar and arranged multiple dates on the same day. You weren't being a cad, not really; you were just on the threshold of exploring the finer intricacies of your fluid teenage sexuality, and you were _really _popular. People asked, you said yes. A lot. And then you got confused by your calendar.

After the outcry had died down and your dates had recovered, it actually did wonders for improving the marks on your dance card. People assumed you must be something pretty hot to manage to score four dates with four different girls on one night, and everybody wanted to see for themselves.

You really enjoyed high school. You had a lot of fun.

It doesn't change your situation now though. You want to tell him that sure she likes you, that yeah, when you look in her eyes and see her softness, you know she feels the same. You want to tell him about that kiss, about how it made you feel something sacred.

You just shrug. "It's complicated," you say, "I think, I don't know…" You want to say it right, you want to tell it to him like you understand it to be. "I think she doesn't _want_ to like me."

Sam's face slips back to confused and this time you don't have a smile to ease it with.

"Why wouldn't she want to like you? You're awesome, Britt, that's just…"

You stop him. You tell him you're friends. You shrug your shoulders again.

He says _wow _again. He looks at your bottle and passes you another, unscrewing the cap on the way. "No wonder you've been distracted," he says, and you pull a Mercedes and reply with _preach_. It makes him smile and has him clinking the end of his bottle with yours. "You know Mercedes is going to love this; she's been on at you to meet a girl ever since we got out here."

"I've met girls," you tell him.

"Absolutely true," he accepts. "None of us can remember the last time you took one out to a ballgame though."

You feel your cheeks redden and you slap him soft across the shoulders. "Sam!" you exclaim, your voice rising. "You know I'm a gentlemen; I'd never touch bases and tell."

"That's because there's nothing to tell about."

He pokes you in the side and you can't help but laugh. "I've been really busy," you insist, settling on the nicer comment instead of the one that bemoans all the airheads and ass-kissers you've met since you signed with MTV. "And anyway, I told you; it's not like that with Santana. We're just going to be friends, that's all."

He looks at you and you look at him and you feel those blonde-haired-blue-eyed-spidey-styled-senses going crazy with conversation. He's reading your eyes and your face and your still reddening blush.

"Friends," he says in a dumb-ass accent, poking again at your side.

"Cut it out, Sam."

"Nah-uh. Brittany's got a girlfriend…"

You work so hard to keep your face deadpan, to not react to his words, but you can't help it when your face crumples into a smile. "We're _not_ girlfriends," you insist, because really you're not. "We're just friends." When he does nothing but roll his eyes again at your statement, you feel quite justified in telling him that she's a darn sight nicer friend than him, too.

He pulls a look of mock hurt and brings his hand to his chest as if wounded and your smile quickly becomes a laugh. "It's nothing personal," you assure him, returning a dig to his side, "it's just like I said; she's really pretty."

You try waggling your eyebrows in true _Don Juan _fashion, but your nose crinkles as you think of all of her pretty and your smile breaks even wider.

Sam just shakes his head and calls you a _fool_, then he takes out his phone and speed dials Mercedes number to bring her in on what is quite likely to be a long night of torture.

…

In the end you told Sam everything - well, not _everything_ - but you told him a whole lot. Once he'd let Mercedes know that your bestie-bonding time was over and that he had news to share, you didn't really stand a chance. As a team they've been ganging up on you since first grade and since first grade you've always buckled under their pressure.

So you tell them about that first just-about-a-kiss and you tell them you kissed once more.

It's hard to keep up the insistence that you and Santana are only friends, but you do keep insisting it and in the end even Mercedes fell quiet. "I just really like her," you said, for perhaps the thousandth time of the night and that was finally allowed to be the last word.

You're grateful that they came over. Your sadness had felt so much further away in their presence and all of the emotion which had threatened to overwhelm you and leave you stranded on the sofa with just Lord T holding you down, had been replaced by the warm feel of lifelong friendship and easy acceptance. They listened to all of your worries and all of your woes and they had made them feel workable. And now, today, you feel workable.

You didn't like hearing second hand tales from Rachel Berry yesterday and you know on some level that you are some part to blame for that; you had opportunity to seek the facts from Quinn first, you could've insisted on introducing Rachel into one of your many conversations.

Yet.

You feel like with Quinn your footing isn't always so steady. You do like her. Or, at the very least, you do want to like her; she just has a way of quietly unsettling you and you're not quite sure how she does it. Like now. You have Sam at your side again, you've spent the morning filming with Quinn at one of the local hospitals, and now you're back at the office in her apartment, trying to explain to her what you feel the problems may be with the footage you've collected so far.

Yet you can't manage to find all of your words. You don't know how to tell her it's all kinds of boring. You don't know how to tell her about how hard she's going to tank against dancing Disney flash-mobs and Jay-Z and Beyonce.

"I don't really understand what you're saying," she says, and it's not the first time you've heard that collection of words today. "I've given you access to everything I'm doing, you and Sam are practically my shadows at the moment; what more do you want?"

She's eyeing you with that cool green gaze of hers, one perfectly sculpted brow lifting just a little higher than the other on her head, yet it's Sam who speaks up, calling her attention his way. "It's audience demographics," he says, and now it's you lifting one eyebrow a little higher as you turn to hear what he means. "It's like with your election thing, your dad's campaign; you have voter demographics too, right?"

"Okay," Quinn says, her eyes firmly fixing on him now, "I'm listening."

"It's like Britt's been trying to explain; it doesn't matter how many hours of footage I film if what I film is…"

He stops. He sneaks a sidelong glance at you.

"Is what?" Quinn asks.

It's your place to say it, even if Sam always does have your back. "It's kind of, _unexciting_," you offer, "not to us, Sam and I are having a real blast. But…"

"Audience demographics?" Quinn's tone isn't as hard as you feared it might be, in fact she seems somewhat amused by what you're saying. She relaxes into her chair across the desk from you and asks what it is you suggest, "I'd hate to think I was _boring _the audience."

You tell her that for the first show, it's probably a little late to do much of anything to change the initial opinions of the viewing audience, and then you pause again. You look across at Sam and you know it's time to say it. "I think," you tell her, edging your way gently in, "that we should probably talk a little about the other team."

There. You've said it. And again the reaction isn't what you expect. You had imagined after yesterday, after spending just those couple of long hours in Rachel's presence and hearing what she had to say of Quinn, that Quinn's reaction to the insinuation of Rachel and the other team wouldn't be to sit across from you and smile with such utter relish.

"The other team?" she asks, almost innocently. "I assume you're referring to the Berry's?"

"Right," you say. "Rachel to be precise."

She takes a moment, appraising you, yet she doesn't drop the smile.

"Rachel and I go back ever such a long way," she eventually says, and you wait a moment to see if she's going to continue on, but she seems more than content to wait on you to lead the conversation.

"Right," you say again. You stutter over making more words though, because it's one of those situations where you're mindful of saying the wrong thing. "I think," you begin, placing your words carefully, "that maybe Rachel's style of… What she does. I think it's going to be more appealing to the MTV audience than, say, church luncheons?"

You shoot her a placating smile to soften what is quite obviously the truth of the situation, but any worry you had of offending her is seemingly misplaced. "Do you think I enjoy church luncheons?" she asks, and the unexpected question asked in such a light tone, throws you for something of a loop.

You haven't really questioned what Quinn enjoys.

You know from the aftermath of the Peter Pan day what she doesn't enjoy, but the rest of the time she's carried out her engagements with absolute professional aplomb. She is the embodiment of grace and old fashioned American beauty and not for one minute have you thought that she doesn't enjoy that. You feel your right shoulder starting to shrug again and you stop yourself from just casually dismissing her question. "I don't know," you say, honestly. "Do you?"

Again she wait's a moment and again you feel as if she is appraising you. Like she's measuring the words and the tone and the weight of whatever she's going to say before she says it. "Of course," she tells you after her long deliberation, "though, I can see why some might not find it appealing. Have you met Rachel?"

Her question again throws you. She tacks it on the end of her statement as if it's just a casual ask, but you watch her sit forward in her chair, much the way that Rachel had done yesterday when she wanted to interrogate you, and like then, you feel as if that there's more to this than the obvious question of have you met.

"Sure," you offer, nodding your head as you remember your meeting in all its glory.

"And," she asks when you don't offer more, "how _is _Rachel doing these days?"

You keep it professional because you're sure that it should be. You look to Sam just to break the intensity of Quinn's pinpoint stare and you do allow yourself another shrug this time, "She's doing lots," you inform her, sidestepping the question's other intent. "Mike and Tina, the crew on the other team, they went with her to that big AIDS benefit concert the other night. And they've been doing singing classes with kids at one of those downtown studios and-"

"They met Beyonce."

Sam interrupts you and you repeat his words, "They met Beyonce."

Quinn's taking it all in and still she's smiling. It's only small, it hovers more to the right side of her lips than the left, but you can still see it there. "Well," she draws out once you finish speaking, "Rachel was always fond of making a show of herself; I imagine this situation suits her perfectly. I'm sure if you give it another week or so she'll be assaulting your audience full blast with a gloriously heartfelt rendition of the showcase song from whatever Broadway play she's currently obsessed with. Probably the whole soundtrack."

"We are a music station," you point out, "it would probably work in her favour."

"Is she any good?" Sam asks from your side.

It's the first time that Quinn's smile drops since Rachel's been mentioned. She takes in a long deep breath before releasing it slowly, "She incredibly good. Sickeningly good."

"Oh."

You don't really know what else to say. It's that whole compliment versus insult situation again and you're not entirely sure which one Quinn is going for here. When she starts speaking again you edge ever so slightly onto the side of compliment.

"Our senior year production," she states, her eyes fixing on the air above your shoulder, "Rachel absolutely stole the show. They had talent scouts from that big school in New York, and she," Then her words stop dead and her eyes snap back to you. "It doesn't matter," she says now, and you don't believe her. "Just tell me Brittany, what do you think I have to do to beat her?"

…

Once Quinn had given you the green light to wax fantastic about some of the ideas you've managed to scrape together in an effort to turn the tide, you hadn't been able to stop. The conversation had turned quickly from Rachel Berry and she wasn't mentioned again as Quinn instead sat wide eyed, yet listening intently to each of your suggestions. She'd been particularly enamoured, you thought, with your idea of integrating her into some of the stations already flagship shows. You spoke to Holly this morning about your idea of having Quinn guest present on Punk'D and that's just the first of the shows which you plan to hijack. You're popular around the set, you've made many friends besides Tina and Mike at MTV, and you fully plan on utilising all of your contacts.

To be honest you don't know why you didn't mention it sooner. Once you'd seriously started considering having Quinn come on Fondue for Two though, the ideas had exploded in your mind. You'd been sitting on them, sure that maybe Holly wouldn't be up for a Fabray style takeover of the station, but after last night, after Sam had confided his worries about how bad you're losing it, you'd decided to just go for it.

Holly had reacted as if this was what she'd been waiting for and you're feeling good about the show again.

Sam's back smiling the way he should be and Quinn's smile is laced with something you haven't seen before, something you don't recognise, but something which is energised. It's enough for you to roll with the positive. It was enough for you to wave off Sam's offer of a lift and instead ride back over to the campaign offices with Quinn. Your scooter is there and you wanted some time alone with her. Maybe not to figure her out, but maybe to hear some of the back ground to the things Rachel had told you about yesterday and perhaps start to figure it all out.

She isn't speaking so much anymore though. You're back inside her little red sports car with the white interiors and she seems much more intent on the road than she does on talking to you. You've tried to guide her a couple of times into conversation but each time you do, she looks almost surprised to find you sitting at her side. When you pull into a parking space outside of the office you wait while she sits inanimate long after she turns off the engine.

"Are we going inside?" you eventually ask, because if you're done for the day you can forgo the actual going inside and just head home. With the early morning start at the hospital and the afternoon meeting at Quinn's which has lasted long into the evening, you're more than ready to be done for the day. You want to go home and you want to think about the only pressing matter you haven't been able to address today.

When Quinn answers you in the affirmative you want to sigh, yet you don't. You exit the car and wait for her and then you follow her inside. It's pretty quiet and it seems as though most people have already left for the day.

It makes it really easy to notice Santana.

She's sat at Quinn's desk, her attention all focused on the phone in her hands, and she doesn't look up when you enter. When Quinn speaks her name, she does look up.

"What are you doing here?" Quinn asks her, and she sounds just as surprised to find Santana sitting there this far into the evening as you are. Santana, for her part, doesn't look particularly surprised to see either of you. She smiles at Quinn, she turns her smile your way.

"I was bored." she says in way of answer. "I thought you'd be here."

You know she's speaking to Quinn, yet it feels as if she is speaking to you. Her eyes flick your way every few seconds as though she's including you within her meaning and again you feel that she's sought you out. You smile at Quinn's side. You smile at Santana.

"That still doesn't explain why you're here," Quinn says, slicing through your thoughts. "I thought after Saturday you were done helping daddy?"

You don't know the significance of Saturday. You only know that Santana wasn't invited to the ball. You don't have time to wonder over the what's and why's though because Quinn starts speaking again as if she hadn't already just asked a question. "It's good that you are here though," she says, sitting on the edge of the desk Santana occupies, "guess who Brittany's had the pleasure of meeting?"

"If she's spent the day with you, Q, I can't imagine it's anyone I'd find pleasurable."

"Oh, on the contrary," Quinn says, and you want to stop her. There's something in her tone. Something in her way. Something, something, something. Yesterday you had wanted to protect Santana against Rachel's words, today you feel as though you need to protect her from Quinn's. You just focus on Santana though, you watch her face as Quinn says the words. "Brittany met Rachel."

Santana's eyes flick to you. They shoot back to Quinn. They harden.

"I told you, Quinn, I'm not-"

"Save it," Quinn interrupts and Santana falls silent. You swear her eyes are almost black as she stares at Quinn and for the first time you're glad that her gaze is not on you. "We have an agreement Santana," Quinn insists when Santana eventually looks away, "we can take down Berry just like we've always done. It'll be fun."

It doesn't sound so much like fun right now. Framed around your own ideas it sounded all sorts of awesome, yet framed by the way Quinn is talking to Santana, well.

"And if I say no?"

Santana speaks and Quinn stands up from the desk. You can see her smile, you can see the way she's looking down on Santana and you don't like any of it. "You can't," she just quips, "this isn't just about the campaign anymore, and now I insist."

You expect Santana to snarl, you expect her to tell Quinn just what to do with her insistence, yet she doesn't. She stands, she stares Quinn down again for a few tense seconds, and then she agrees with a tightly whispered _fine. _She doesn't even look at you as she turns and leaves the office, and all you can do is fix on Quinn with your brow pulled down and your gaze quizzical.

You want to ask what was that. You don't have to.

"Excuse her," Quinn says, shrugging off the oddity of the short conversation. "She has even more history with Rachel than I do; she absolutely despises her."

"Why?" you say without thinking. It is the obvious question though. Obvious to you because you had to sit and listen to Rachel tell a tale where they were once best friends. You can't help but wonder where exactly the venom came from.

"Why?" Quinn repeats, her own brow furrowing, "the list is endless. If you put aside the fact that Rachel is who she is, the list is still endless."

You want to ask what's at the top of the list, or even what's at the bottom.

Quinn is distracted by the beeping of her phone though, and when she reads whatever message came her way and tells you she has to leave, you're not too disappointed.

You don't think you've ever been embroiled in such a confusing situation before. It was meant to be battle of the bands which quickly evolved into a political event which has now become something so much more and almost all of it you're finding hard to understand.

Two weeks ago you didn't know any of these people, yet now, just four days away from the airing of the first show, you feel like your whole life is starting to revolve around them, and you're really not sure that you like it.

…

Quinn's car is already gone from the front of the building when you make your way outside and you walk almost blindly towards the underground parking bay to relocate your scooter. You're still trying to puzzle it all out; everything you know and everything you don't know. You know that Quinn and Rachel are rivals in both life and love, you know that Rachel says her and Santana were once best friends, you know that Quinn and Santana are sometimes friends and sometimes something else you also don't understand. And you know that somewhere, in amongst all of that, Santana lost her Mom, and you suspect maybe that she once, for some reason or another still unknown, might have moved away to live in that small little housing development tacked onto a town below a big hill.

It's so much and yet so _nothing._

So much of nothing that it feels like everything.

You shouldn't be surprised when you see her car sat in the bay just four down from where your scooter sits. You shouldn't be, because she's seems to always be where you are, yet surprise is what fills you and what holds you still. The surprise of seeing her car and the surprise of seeing her in it.

The roof is up and she looks so rigid cocooned inside. She's sat staring at the wall in front of her with her hands on the wheel, the engine isn't switched on, and you wonder what to do. You want to approach her, of course you do, yet.

There's so much. The stuff inside of you, you think you can handle. You feel like you're falling in love with Santana, and that feeling isn't a bad one. It makes you smile, it makes you happy. It makes you want.

It's the stuff outside of you, the stuff you don't understand that makes you feel bad. It urges caution and restraint and words like _wait and see._ Yet you do wait and you do see and you do want. She's still not moving and you _want_ to go to her.

You figure that tapping gently on the passenger side window is a whole lot better than startling her on the driver's side, and that's what you do when you reach her car. You don't stand too close, you lean forward, and you knock gently three times against the glass.

When the window opens, you take a step forward and lean down to see her.

And you still want.

She looks angry and she looks so lost and now you want to soothe her.

"Santana?" you ask, because her eyes aren't focusing on you. "Are you okay?"

"You spoke to Rachel."

It's a statement and her words are hard and you weren't expecting them.

This is about Quinn and Rachel and Santana. This isn't about you.

You say her name again but her eyes are still focusing on the wall ahead.

"Will you look at me?" you ask softly when you tire of looking in silence at her profile, yet when she does turn and look it stalls your next words. It leaves room for hers.

"What crap did she say about me?"

You don't say anything. You don't shrug it away. You ask if you can get in the car. When she doesn't answer, you say her name again. You say _please._

It looks as though she's deliberating with the wall and you hope that the wall is arguing your side well. Her expression doesn't change from one of hardness, so when she looks at you and tells you to just get in, you only allow your lips to lift into the smallest of smiles.

You wait to see if she's going to speak, but it becomes obvious as she sits not saying a word that she's waiting for you to answer the question she's already asked. She still won't look at you directly and you actually think it might be easier like this.

"She said some stuff," you say, starting mildly. You want her to know though, before you say more, that you didn't solicit Rachel's attention, you didn't ask to know about Santana. When you tell her that she bamboozled you at dinner, that you didn't even know you were going to be meeting her, she doesn't comment. "I didn't ask about you," you tell her, trying more to assure, "anything she said, she just said. There was really no stopping her."

"What did she say?"

You want to let out a sigh, but you don't. "She said you were pretty mean to her," you offer quietly, "she mostly just said that you did Quinn's dirty work for her, that you…"

"That I what?"

The hardness of Santana's tone isn't making the situation anymore pleasant, but you feel like you owe her the truth. "She called you Quinn's loyal attack dog." You shrug and you look away. You focus on the wall yourself for a moment but there aren't any answers to be found there. When you turn back Santana's way her eyes are on you, for a second, a brief second.

"What else?"

"Santana."

"What else?"

You don't like this anymore, you don't like this at all and you don't want to tell more truths. You look away. You breathe deep. "Will you come somewhere with me?" you ask, and it's not what you expected. Your words are out before you've examined them though and you know in the instant you hear yourself say them that they're the right ones.

You meet her eyes. You watch as they shift from hard to confused.

You wait for her to ask where. You wait for her to say anything.

"Please?" you say again, because this is important.

She turns the key in the ignition and you hold onto a breath you don't release until she tells you to put your seatbelt on. She's willing to come with you, and now you just have to prepare yourself for all that lays ahead.

…


	7. Everything That Matters

You're standing in your apartment, you're yet to say a word, and all you can think of, all you can see, is just how rigid Santana is holding herself before you. Once she'd pulled out of the parking bay and onto the open road, she'd looked to you for direction, to tell her where you wanted to take her, and you'd just told her _home_. You watched as the confusion clouded her eyes and you offered more; you told her you have something you want to show her. You told her it's important.

And so she's here, rigid, inside of your apartment, and now you don't know where to begin. This isn't something you've thought through. This isn't something you've ever done before.

She stands just inside of the front door and you watch as she runs her eyes across the large space of your living room. You don't have much in here for her to see. There's the giant over-sized couch with the multi-coloured throw lying across it, your coffee table which sits beneath an assortment of dance and music magazines, your TV and music centre, and the one solitary bookcase standing off to the side. You know it's sparse, you know you could probably do with adding at least one more chair and maybe something decorative to the empty far corner, but you kind of like it this way. When you're bursting full of energy it takes just minutes to slide everything to the side and create a space to dance in, and when you're not feeling energetic, well, the couch is the most perfect couch you've ever found to lay across and the room doesn't take too much in the way of cleaning. You wonder how it looks seen through her eyes though; what she makes of all your spaces.

Her arms are folded tight across her chest, she has her car keys in hand, and all you can really tell from looking at her face is that she's not really sure she wants to be here.

The deep growled meow of Lord Tubbington, the one that let's you know he's not impressed to be eating such a late supper, distracts you from trying to formulate that perfect thing to say to Santana and you concentrate instead on saying any number of things to your cat. You apologise for your meeting running over and you ask all about his day as you follow him towards the kitchen. When you reach the door, you stop.

You look back over your shoulder and she's watching you.

"Can I get you something to drink?" you ask, yet even as she shakes her head _no _she pushes herself away from the front door and walks slowly your way.

You lead her inside the kitchen and you offer another steady stream of nonsense words as you prepare a bowl of food for Lord T. You really want to introduce them; you want to make a fuss over the both of them and declare them as friends, yet it's not hard to tell that now is not the time. You just have to settle for two swift strokes across Lord Tubbington's back as you set his bowl down on the floor, before you turn again to face her.

Her arms are still folded. Her eyes are on you and hard, guarded, like she's trying to hold herself safe from the secrets you might know.

"Are you sure I can't get you anything?" you offer again, because at least it's something.

She shakes her head and her eyes drop down to the ground, "Just show me whatever you need to show me, so I can get the hell out of here."

The sting of her words is instant.

It hits you hard in the solar plexus and spreads out to taint the smile you've been trying so hard to cling to. You say _Santana_, and it's the first time her name doesn't roll off your tongue like a lullaby sent to soothe. Your reaction isn't to want to soothe her within this second; you just want her not to speak to you as if you're someone who's out to get her.

When she doesn't look at you, when you count to five inside your head and her eyes still stalk the floor in front of her, you relent and you say her name again only this time you wrap it within just the smallest sound of softness. Like a sigh. Like a measure of all of your woe carried inside a whisper. It's enough to lift her head and it's enough to have her look at you.

Her gaze is flitting fast across your face like she's not sure if she can settle; her eyes flicking back and forth between your own, her brow furrowing. "I'm sorry, okay?" she offers you when her gaze finally sits still and rests, "I didn't mean that… Just, I'm sorry."

You watch her shoulders slump and you hear the sound of both her resignation and regret.

You imagine the resignation comes from her fear of being here; and you get that. If you were in her shoes, not knowing what the hell was going on, you doubt you'd be feeling too happy either. It's the regret that takes the sting away though. You can see the sorry in her eyes and you know that she means her words.

"It's okay," you tell her. And for the minute it is.

…

It's your first instinct to take her by the hand and lead her where you need to go, yet she keeps her arms crossed over her chest and you're not sure enough to initiate contact. You ask her instead with words to come your way, and she follows as you walk down the hallway, and when you stop outside of the door to the spare room she stops right behind you. You really do want to say something, to explain away everything before you go any further, but there aren't any correct phrases that you've ever found for this. If there were, you would've spoken them to her in the car, you would've just let your tongue speak the story and not insisted that she come here and witness for herself. You aren't so good at this though. You aren't so fast to fumble your way through your words when all of the words are sad ones.

You open the door and switch on the light, and you illuminate the chaos that is your spare room. There's the obligatory bed, made and ready for the comfort of any guest, and there's the one bedside cabinet which holds nothing but a lamp and a radio alarm clock from your old high school days. Aside from that, it holds the whole of your life that you've never gotten around to unpacking. It's actually like a multitude of boxes got together and discovered the meaning of reproduction, because you swear there's more of them every single time that you open this door, and you despair of ever really bringing order to any of it.

It's something that you _can_ fumble words for, and you start babbling excuses as you walk to the bed and unload the stray box from its place on the comforter. "I honestly keep meaning to finish unpacking," you tell her, "but with work and with dance class, and with all the extra time I have to spend making sure fame doesn't go to Lord Tubbington's head and corrupt his already slightly jaded morals, I just haven't…"

You stop because she's staring at you. Not hard, not resigned, not like every other look she's given you this evening; she just looks at you like _Santana_. You can see the corner of her lips curling, you can see the faint outline of her dimples in her cheeks, and you can see the softness returned to her eyes.

You can't help but stop everything to smile back at her.

"Hi," you say, and honestly, you don't know where this moment of bashfulness has come from, but you definitely feel something like shy as her lips curl up even more.

You turn away from the sight of her to place the box you're holding up on top of a pile of yet more boxes, and when you turn back around she's moved inside the door. She's not relaxed, her too tight posture is telling you quite clearly that she's still spooked by this whole experience, but the fact that she's walking towards you instead of away from you is something you take as a positive.

"Do you want to sit?" you ask, pointing to the now clear bed, yet when it looks as though your words might only seek to spook her further, you find a different way to phrase it. "Will you sit with me?"

You know it's the same ask, but you're also aware that it's a different question and even though her eyes are still shaded, she does come towards you and you know that she's going to sit.

Actually watching her decide _where _she's going to sit is something else entirely. She looks to you and then she looks back to the door as if she's still measuring out an escape route, and when she does decide on a place, she barely perches on the edge of the mattress and she's about as far away from where you stand as she can be.

You know it probably shouldn't be, but it _is _all kinds of cute.

"I just have to get something," you tell her when she's settled, and you feel her eyes following you closely as you walk to the closet set back into the far wall. You don't really use the space for much, it's mostly just full of more of the unpacked boxes, and it's one of those you push aside now so as you can reach up to the top shelf and pull down the old shoebox that contains all of the memories you never got to make. You know the weight so well, you know the contours of the box as well as you know the contours of your own face, and you'd swear, if asked, that it's the most deeply personal thing you possess.

You take a moment just holding it within your arms before you go back to Santana.

You're sure about what you're doing, yet you're so not sure.

Sam is the only person who's ever sat at your side in a moment like this, and now you're about to ask someone else to sit at your side. Not just someone either; like, the most important someone you can think of right now.

And you don't know how she's going to react.

You don't want her to misread the gesture; you don't want her to think that you're using your own sense of sadness to try and infiltrate hers, or that you're trying to pin down her secrets by sharing your own. You're really not. If she never tells you another thing about herself, you already feel sure that you know enough to be certain of her.

You just want her to know that you're willing to share with her. Even the hard stuff.

Her eyes follow you all the way back to the bed, yet she doesn't meet your gaze; all of her attention is focused now on what you hold in your hands and you wonder if she too can feel the gravity; for the small amount it holds inside, it just feels so heavy, and you're sure that there must be an equation or an explanation or some kind of dark matter somewhere that can explain how so little can possibly weigh you down so much.

When you get back to the bed you don't spend long deliberating about where or why to sit, you just cross your legs, Indian style, somewhere close to the centre and you rest the box in your lap with your hands placed gently on top. It's always felt to you as if this box contains all of your outside pieces that were meant to have been placed on your inside and you can't help but pause for a deep breath before you take off the lid.

You need to concentrate.

You need to see the things in front of you without them swimming away from you. You need to look at pictures and know that they'll never be memories. You need to touch the things your father has touched and know that you'll never, no matter how hard you wish for it, no matter how many times you tell yourself that you believe anything is possible, you'll never, not even once, be able to feel his touch.

It takes a moment. It takes more than one deep breath.

_Brittany, _you hear her say, and her voice sounds full of a thousand questions.

"I just…" Your voice comes out small and shaky, and you take a moment to set it right. You move the box down from your lap to the space in front of you, in front of her, and you lift off the lid. "I just wanted to show you this."

You know her eyes are on you now; you can _feel_ her eyes are on you, yet you don't look up. You can't look up, because the first thing your fingers touch upon in the box is a photograph, and it's your favourite photograph. It shows your mom and your dad and a group of their friends and it was taken in the front room of their old house about two months before your dad went away. Your mom is about six months pregnant and blooming beautifully, and she's smiling widely into the camera with her hands cradling her bump.

Your dad is kneeling down in front of her, kissing her stomach.

Kissing you.

It's your favourite photograph and it hurts the most.

You pull your eyes shut tight for a moment, swallowing back the feeling, and then you hold the picture out to Santana. "That's my parents," you tell her when her eyes question you. "My mom and my dad."

You look at her looking at the picture and you know when her gaze flicks back up to your face that she's noting the similarities. Your dad's face is angled away from the camera, but the profile is the same and the blonde of his hair is just as blonde as yours. She doesn't say anything for a long time and you imagine that she doesn't know what to say.

The next photo is the one in uniform. He really does look dashing and you're sure that if you'd ever had the chance to see him you would've felt so proud.

Yet you didn't, and you're really not sure if _pride _is the word you would name your feelings now.

You hand the second photo over to Santana and you know when her brow dips down that she's striving to understand. You're giving her all of the little puzzle pieces, yet you haven't framed them for her yet inside of a full picture. "I never met him," you tell her when she looks to you again. "He was a soldier, so."

You shrug because you've never really been given a better explanation than that.

Her mouth stays silent yet her eyes soften so much as she gains her understanding, and you have to look away from her.

You have to breathe deep again. You have to remember to keep it all at a distance.

"My mom was pregnant with me when he went away," you begin in a monotone, "and then my dad went overseas and he got swept away in this giant desert storm." You look back at her now and her eyebrows are knotted together with all of her confusion. It lifts your lips, just a little, and you tell her that's how you were told it when you were young. "We moved to live with my grandparents in Ohio, and I think they just thought it'd be easier for me to deal with it that way. I honestly thought it meant he was living with the Munchkins in Oz, like some giant sand-storm had whisked him away to this awesome other place, and then…"

You stop because you remember so clearly when your memories became bad ones.

Your mom had been pregnant with your baby sister and your mind had made itself up that this obviously meant your new daddy would be going away too. You'd talked to Sam about it, you were quite prepared; you'd even started to read The Wizard of Oz again just so you could offer your step-dad some helpful hints for along the way.

Your mom and your grandparents, all of your family really, had sat you down and introduced the word _death_ into your vocabulary. Desert Storm wasn't some fantastical notion of a fantastical tornado that had somehow managed to carry your dad away.

He'd died in service on March 24th, 1991.

Just two months after you were born.

Sometimes you still tell yourself the Oz story and you pretend that anything is possible. Sometimes it's hurts too much for you to believe it.

When you start to tell the words to Santana, everything hurts.

It's just so _dumb_. Out of all the things in your life that have been pointed out to you as dumb, you're absolutely certain that death is the most stupid of everything. It makes no sense, it's an end of possibility, and you don't believe, not for even one minute, that Peter Pan spoke anything like the truth when he declared death to be some awfully big adventure.

The Land of Oz is an adventure. Death is just the hollow truth that hides behind the curtain.

You feel the tears pooling in your eyes as you make your way through to the end, and you try with all of your might to not set them free. Your chin wobbles, you tighten your lips together and draw them inside of your mouth, and you hold your breath. Santana lifts her hand and you know she's going to seek to comfort you, but all you can do is shake your head.

You just need a moment to not fall apart.

When she says your name, when _Brittany _sounds out in the way that only she can make it sound, you know you don't have a hope in hell. You look into her eyes and you feel your tears fall. You're still shaking your head, you raise a hand to keep her away from you, but the tears do fall.

One, two, three. Like a stream trickling sadness slowly down your cheeks.

The hand you aren't using to hold her back, you ball up and push hard into your eyes.

You didn't want to cry.

Not because you're scared of weakness or worried that it's dumb; neither of those are true for you. But just because you didn't want to put that kind of weight onto Santana. You don't want her to feel like she has to comfort you, you don't want her to feel awkward about what words to say, or what gestures to make. This still isn't about that and you don't want to make it about that.

As it is she just says your name again. Once, twice, and then, _BrittBritt, _and it doesn't sound awkward at all.

"I'm okay," you tell her, wiping away the last of your straying tears, because really, you are. "Everything's good and everyone's happy and you can't really miss something that you've never even had." You pause to take breath and she shifts on the bed in front of you. She still doesn't pull her legs up the way that you have, but she turns more, she settles more, and it makes it easier to speak. "It's just sometimes," you say, meeting her eyes again, "I just miss the way he might've laughed at my crazy jokes, or I miss the way he might've just _got_ me when no one else did." You shrug your shoulders and drop your gaze back down to the bed, "I guess I just miss all of the stuff I'll never know."

You really don't have anything else to say, because you feel like you said it all. You also don't feel like emptying out anymore of the box now. You know everything inside by heart; you've touched and tallied the contents a million times over during the last twenty-one years.

She hands you back the photos without question when you ask, and you place them back where they belong without glancing down at them again.

The silence that settles over the room now isn't an uncomfortable silence, but it's still a silence that makes you rise up from the bed and offer words about using the bathroom. If she wants to leave now, that's okay with you; you feel like you unloaded a whole great heap of heavy on her there and she never asked you for any of it, so if she wants to leave, that's okay.

You offer her the option, you don't phrase it in a way that sounds like you want her to go anywhere, you just say you're making yourself tea and you ask if she wants one. Or coffee.

"Or water?" you add on, as you get to the door.

This feels like one of those moments. You've bared a large part of your soul to Santana and now it's up to her to decide what she's going to do with it. If she's going to stay and share, or if she's going to walk away.

You watch as she slides herself up further onto the bed, as she lifts her leg up onto her lap and starts pulling off her shoes; and you smile when she tells you that she'll have what ever you're having.

…

You calm yourself completely while you're in the kitchen. In the bathroom you splashed your face with cold water and wiped away the smudged up panda eyes your cried out mascara had left you with, but it's out here, one hand buried in Lord Tubbington's fur and the other stirring the teabags in the mugs as you wait for the tea to brew, that you recover your sense of calm.

You feel like you've passed the hardest part of the evening, and Santana is still here.

She hasn't misjudged your intention, she's only sought to try and soothe you.

It makes it easy to swallow down any further thoughts of tears and find a soft curve to your lip instead. Because Santana is still here, and no matter the circumstance that has kept her here, you can't help but smile a little at that.

You carry both of the mugs in one hand when you make your way back to the room, and in the other you hold onto a couple of bottles of water in case she needs to quench an immediate thirst. It's not difficult, you have big hands, but when you get back to the doorway, you pause anyway.

Santana has sat herself fully on the bed and she's picked up one of the photos from the box again. You watch her closely while she studies it. Her hair is down and it shrouds her face from your view, but you can see the way her shoulders are held so rigid and tight again.

"Hey," you say, placing the cups down on the side and heading back to your own spot on the bed. You offer her a bottle of water and she places the picture back down in the box.

There's such a gentle reverence in her touch and you can't help but feel the pull in all of your empty places.

"I don't have any pictures," she says, accepting the bottle from you but not meeting your gaze. "My dad… After me and my… After we moved, he cleared out the house. And then," she pauses and she sighs, "when I came back, I didn't exactly bring anything with me."

You wait a moment, twisting the cap from your bottle and taking a drink, and when you look back her way her eyes have found you.

"I take it Berry gave you my whole fucked up history then?" she says, and even though the words aren't easy, they're nowhere near as hard and brittle as she was when you first got her here.

You tell her _no_ and you tell her _sorry. _"She just said it'd happened. She didn't share any details or anything, no one asked her for more."

You watch her shrug her shoulders, you watch her push the feeling away.

"It's not like it's a secret," she says, and you know that, but it is something sacred and Rachel shouldn't have been the one to tell you. It makes you want to say sorry again, but you hold your tongue to let her talk. "It was all a long time ago anyway, it's not like it even matters now."

"Maybe," you say, "I still prefer hearing about you, from you though."

"You should probably think about staying away from Rachel then."

She rolls her eyes away from you as she says it, but there's no obvious venom present in her tone. You ask your question because you have to ask, because it still seems all kinds of outlandish when you try and find a place in your mind to imagine it. "Is it true," you begin, pulling your legs up to crossed again and settling your hands in your lap, "that you and Rachel used to be friends?"

"Is that something else she told you?"

"She said _best friends_; that you practically grew up together."

She rolls her eyes again and her forehead dips. "Rachel's prone to exaggerate a lot."

When she doesn't say anymore you push her a little. You ask if that means they weren't really friends, and it just makes her look away from you, "It was a long time ago. It's like I said, that stuff doesn't matter anymore."

You let her words quiet you, and you reach across to pick up one of the mugs of tea. The first one you pass to her and the second one you wrap your hands around and take a sip. The silence still doesn't feel like the awkward kind to you and you're happy to just sit and drink your tea without trying to force any further conversation.

In the end it's Santana who speaks again first. She stretches across you to place her mug back down on the side, and once you've finished your tea and done the same, she edges the shoebox over so that it's no longer resting between you and she sits facing you; her legs crossed the same as yours with her knees gently touching against your own. She takes one of your hands in hers and she places your palms flat together; yours on the bottom, hers resting down on top. "I like hearing stuff about you more than I do about me," she whispers, focusing her eyes on the way she's measuring her fingers against your own. When she lifts her hand off of yours and instead uses her index finger to slowly trace all of the different lines across your palm, you can't help but giggle a little. It seems to please her and she smiles as she brings her eyes up to look at you, "Tell me more stuff."

"Yeah?"

You find it easy to smile back at her and it's not just because of the tickle in your hand.

"Uh-huh. You said you had a sister, right?" You nod and she only smiles wider, "So tell me about her."

And so you do. You tell her everything you remember from the day your sister was born, you tell her all the funny stuff she used to do growing up, and you tell her how now, what with her just turning twelve years old last month, she's started to hero worship you a whole heck of a lot, and how she constantly brags to all of her friends at school about you being super-famous and how you have your own show on MTV. Santana laughs a lot of the time you're speaking and not once has she let go of the hold she's taken of your hand. It's like all of the heavy stuff you told her before has brought her closer to you on the bed, yet none of the heaviness is weighing you down. She just looks happy to be here and that's enough to make you happy. You didn't have a plan when you asked her to come here tonight, but if you did have one, you think it might've gone something like this.

You stop speaking now and she wait's a moment as if to check that you're done.

"The way you tell it, Britt, it almost makes me wish I had siblings of my own."

"You're an only child?" you ask.

"Sure am," she says, and it cuts off all of the easy questions you could've hoped to ask had she had a brother or a sister to learn about.

The silence sits for just a little while, until she runs another tickle along your hand, the one that she's still holding in her lap. "Whenever you stop talking," she says quietly, her head tilting to the side, "I'm always left feeling like I want to know more."

You think it's probably the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to you and you feel the pink spread from your ears to your cheeks and to the edges of your smile.

"I like telling you more," you assure her, fighting back the blush. "You can ask me anything, I really don't mind."

"I can ask you _anything_?"

"Sure. What else do you want to know?"

She looks like she's thinking hard on a question, but when the word _everything_ slips out from between her lips, her eyes spread wide in panic, and you think perhaps it crept out without any thought at all. Her eyes flick from you to the door as if she's planning to freak out, and it makes you turn your hand over, the one beneath hers, and lace your fingers lightly together.

"_Everything's_ probably a bit too much for just one night," you tell her, waiting for her smile to come back before you carry on. "We should probably just start by covering the little things, yeah?"

She cocks her brow as she looks at you and you swear she almost pouts. "I already know the little things," she insists, and you can't help but laugh at the look on her face. "What? I do!"

When she pulls both of her eyebrows down and tries to convince you of something like anger, you only laugh harder. "Seriously, San?" you ask, and now she really does pout.

"I know your favourite colour is pink," she says, lifting your hand and dropping it back into your own lap, "and orange and green and blue and purple and yellow…"

The list goes on and on, and your laughter dies down. You don't know quite how many colours she knows the name of, but hearing her list each of them out like this sounds like some kind of magic. Like a spell, like she really is naming a thousand sacred parts of you instead of just throwing out the generic.

When she eventually stops, you send her your softest smile. "Okay, so you know the little things," you say, "and you know some of the big things. I should probably tell you a medium thing now."

"A medium thing?"

"Sure." You wiggle your eyebrows at her and this time it's her who laughs at you. "What medium sized thing would you like to know, Santana?"

You shift your body while she's deliberating and pull yourself back up towards the headboard, you stretch your legs fully out and you nudge at her knee with one of your feet when she takes too long to answer. "Okay, okay, I'm thinking," she says, and you decide that she looks quite beautiful when she's thinking. "I've got one," she eventually assures you, pulling at your foot and dragging it into her lap. When she runs her finger the length of your sole, you try and pull away, but she just tightens her grip more, her eyes lock onto yours and for the briefest moment you're caught up in the tension. "Easy, Britt," she whispers, her eyebrow cocking, "I promise I won't do it again."

She's smiling and you don't want to trust her words and be tickled again, but you also don't want to move your foot. When she says _relax, _you do, and this time, when she strokes her fingers up over the top of your ankle and across the bare patch of skin beneath the edge of your leggings, you don't pull away.

"Tell me about your first kiss."

You're mostly thinking about your ankle.

"My first kiss," you say, watching her fingers as they measure the circumference, "uh, I don't know; Sam, I guess. I think we were eight."

You both watch and feel as her grip tightens. "That so doesn't count. When was your first _real _kiss?" She looks almost smug, as if she's caught you out, and you think maybe, in a way, that she has.

You've kissed so many people over the course of your lifetime, like, there's a whole list; an _actual_ list that you and Sam regularly edited all through high school. Then there's the girls you've kissed since you left high school.

And then there's Santana.

You wonder what she would say if you told her that your first real kiss had been just a couple of nights ago; you wonder how long it would take her to understand the significance.

As it is you're trying to stare the answer into her.

Her eyes are locked on yours, her fingers are locked around your ankle, and you can't help but feel that connection again.

"I don't know," you say, your words scratching at the back of your throat. "Junior high maybe? There were a lot of parties; it was probably someone around then."

She doesn't wait a beat before she asks you _first boyfriend, _and you consider the idea that she has a prepared list of enquiries just waiting to be reeled off. You're smiling anyway, but at her question it stretches a little wider and you can't help the sass you put into it when you offer her your reply. "How do you know it wasn't a girlfriend?"

"Was it?"

Her eyes don't leave yours except to flick down quick to your lips and back again, and you take a moment to answer; "No, it was Sam, again, and we were probably still both eight." You wink and she laughs at you, "I don't just throw my kisses around anywhere, you know?"

She doesn't know, and you sometimes have, but you doubt that you will be anymore.

When she looks at your lips again, when her mouth curves into the bashful smile you're more than starting to fall in love with, you're sure that there's only one person you'll ever want to kiss again.

…

She's moved on your bed now and you've moved with her. You showed her to the bathroom, you made another round of tea, and when you came back she was laid across the bed, on her side, her head propped up on her hand and her eyes fixed on the door, waiting for you.

You don't say anything about her change in position, you simply mirror it; putting the mugs down and then stretching yourself out. You take the opposite end to her, like the top-to-tail of your youthful sleepovers with Sam, and this time it's you who lets your fingers find her feet.

They're so much smaller then yours - _dainty _even_ - _and the nails on her toes are each painted a deep shade of red. You trace the spaces between each of them and she doesn't flinch once, and even when you run the barest touch of your fingertips across the sole of her foot she barely moves.

"Not ticklish," she says, and when you raise your eyebrow to question her further she corrects herself and tells you that her feet aren't ticklish.

"So you are ticklish somewhere?" you ask.

She rolls onto her back and takes her eyes away from you and for a minute you dare to think that she's going to show you where. "Maybe," she eventually says, "that's a pretty big thing though, Britt, and we're still only doing the medium."

You'd roll your eyes if she was looking at you, but instead you just sigh and sit up to reach for your tea. You ask if she wants hers but she lifts her hand and waves away the question so you settle back down and sip at your own. It's hard to think of a medium question because everything you don't know feels like something large. Eventually you ask her about college; you know about Quinn and Rachel and where they go, but you know nothing about Santana except for the fact that she's always around. You wonder if she's taken a year off too, you ask if that's what the deal is.

She lifts her head off the bed and rests her weight on her elbows before she answers you, her eyes once again settling on yours, "That's a small question," she says, surprising you, "I'm not in college."

"You're not?"

"Nope. I didn't want to do what my family wanted and they didn't want me to do what I wanted; apparently they prefer it if I do nothing."

It sounds all kinds of crazy to you even as she says it and you know your face must be looking awash with confusion, "What did you want to do?"

You imagine it must be something kind of bizarre if her family would rather cut off all access to college rather than have her studying it. You don't know much about courses other than the dancing kind, but you're quick to imagine possibilities of all the outlandish ones, like taxidermy, or maybe one of those doctors who spends all day looking at kids' acne and busting open their zits. "Was it taxidermy?" you venture, when she still hasn't answered.

She laughs and you smile, and she shakes her head in your direction.

"Not taxidermy?" you check, and she scrunches her nose up.

"No Britt, I have absolutely no desire to spend the rest of my life stuffing dead animals."

You can't help the way your eyes widen. Because, what?

"Is that what _that_ is?" you ask, not really wanting to know. You always imagined it was something to do with learning to drive a cab. Your Aunt Hilda's last husband, Ernie, had been a taxidermist and you just figured he was putting on airs and not wanting to say cabdriver.

"What did you think it was?"

You shrug and smile and hope for the best, and she just shakes her head again and rolls her eyes. "Anyway," she says, once her gaze is back on you and your fingers are back to softly stroking the skin on the top of her feet, "It's not like it even matters, it's done now."

"You say that a lot."

You squeeze her foot gently as if to confirm your point, but when she tilts her head to side without understanding, you offer her more. "You keep saying that nothing matters; why do you do that?"

"Maybe nothing much does."

She's still smiling at you, yet her words aren't ones for happy faces.

"Maybe you're wrong," you say. "Maybe lots of things matter."

"And maybe they don't."

"Maybe they do."

She mock glares at you, but you just continue to smile at her triumphant, until she speaks again, "Maybe you know they really don't and you just like being contrary."

The smug grin her smile now becomes lets you know that she's pleased with her words and a small part of you wants to lean forward and kiss that smugness from her lips. She's just, so.

_Her. _

And you can't help but want her.

You also can't help but answer her. "Maybe I don't know what that word means," you say, yet she only raises her eyebrow at you and tells you that maybe you're just proving her point.

You're honestly not sure what point you've just proved or if you've decided what really matters or not, but when she pulls her feet away from you and folds herself forward to take the space by your side, you think that maybe you've decided that _she _really matters. She's lying on her stomach, she's resting her weight up on her arms and her head is turned up to look at you.

"Some thing's matter," you tell her quietly when you meet her eyes.

"Yeah, and some thing's don't."

You don't argue anymore because you're too busy watching her. You're watching the way she moves her arm and her hand and the way that she leans across to tug at your shirt, "Lay down with me, Britt?" she asks, and you scoot the little way down the bed until you can roll onto your side and face her.

…

Neither of you speak for a long time once you fill the space at her side.

She rolled over to mirror you and both of you seem to be lost in a trance of touch.

She started it. She reached out and took your hand again and placed it palm up beside her on the bed, then she began to run her fingers back and forth across the underside of your forearm; just a gentle tracing graze that'd held your gaze prisoner. You watched her movements across your skin until your own need to touch had forced you to reach out for her too; your hand rising away from her, pushing at her shoulder.

She rolled onto her back without need of effort and your whole view of the world changed in that moment. She was looking up at you, you were looking down at her, _Brittany, _is all she said and all you heard, and you had to tear your eyes away or you would've started kissing her then and you never would have stopped.

Your breath had caught deep. It still catches deep.

And your fingers are still on her skin.

You remember watching when she'd sat up to remove the dark blue blazer she'd been wearing over the tight white vest she's currently left in, but you can't remember how many minutes it's been since you pulled the vest from the waistband of her pants. You can't remember quite how many seconds you've lay next to her, just tracing gentle patterns across the soft skin of her stomach, or quite how many times she's reached up to stroke her fingers through your hair, but you do know that all of them count.

All of this matters to you.

You stop the movement of your hand now and just rest your palm flat, as if you can hold this moment forever as it is if neither of you ever move again. You look at her, she looks at you, and you _swear_ that it's love you're seeing.

You swear it.

Yet she asks you _what_ and you just can't answer.

You want to tell her. You want to run out into the streets with her hands in yours and you want to exclaim to the world, that here, right now, in this one woman, you think you might have found everyone you're ever going to need.

Yet you can't.

You smile, you swallow, you say to her that it's getting late.

"But I don't want to move," she says, and you just hold your hand still. She rolls a touch closer, almost so the only space between you is the space your hand occupies, and her eyes zero in on yours, "Don't make me move, Britt."

You watch her lips form the words. You feel that tightening inside.

"San," you say, and you watch her smile. You watch her move forward.

And you move back.

Her eyebrow dips in confusion but you really don't know how to explain it.

If you kiss her now, if after everything you've shared with her tonight on this bed, if you kiss her and then she tells you that it all doesn't matter, that this isn't allowed, you don't think your heart could stand it. You know what this is, and you promise yourself you won't touch her lips with yours again until she tells you that she knows it too. Until then you're just going to be an awesome friend. Even if it kills you.

"I won't make you move," you say, when you can't say anything else, "we'll just stay here, okay?"

"Promise?"

"Yeah."

She moves closer again and you roll onto your back to accommodate her presence, "Is this okay?" she asks as she folds herself into your side, and you answer her by lifting your arm and bringing her in closer. Her head is on your shoulder, her hand is now placed across your stomach, and you can barely even breathe.

When she says your name and her breath blows warm across your neck, you're sure she must feel you shiver, "Uh-huh?" you say, not confident of finding real words.

You wait and you wait for her to say more, but the silence stretches and she doesn't elaborate, and you wonder if she's drifted off to sleep; if the weight of the evening has finally pulled her eyes down to closed.

When you feel her lips press down against the bare skin of your neck, you know that you're wrong and you hold your breath again; you hold her just a little bit tighter.

"Night Britt," she whispers as she pulls her lips away, yet in your mind you hear the so much more and in your heart you feel the love.

…

It takes more than a moment when you wake up to remind yourself of exactly where you are. The bed doesn't feel like your bed, you're not beneath any covers, and you have the feeling that there's a whole lot of something you need to remember.

_Santana._

You remember.

Your eyes open and she's not there and you close them again just to check you weren't dreaming. Your skin is still alive from her touch though and when your fingers reach up and trace that place on your neck, you know you can still feel her kiss.

You can only think that's she's left already. And that's okay.

You never meant to keep her here beyond the something you wanted to show her, and you're just grateful that the night unfolded the way that it did instead of the way you worried it might go. In one sense you're no nearer to knowing answers to any of the questions which your fears wish to pose, yet in the sense that you say matters, you feel closer to her than ever.

You don't expect to see her sat at the breakfast bar when you walk into the kitchen, you don't expect the enormous smile that takes over her face as she catches sight of you.

It stops your feet moving. It opens your mouth, "You're still here," you say, and you think that your smile might be even bigger than her one.

"I am," she nods, and she points your gaze accusingly in the direction of Lord Tubbington. He's laying across the doorway from the kitchen into the lounge and he doesn't seem as though he's going to move anytime soon, "Your enormous cat won't let me leave."

You laugh because she's adorable, and because you're still standing close to the other doorway. The one that also leads back down the passage and towards the front door.

"I'm glad you stayed, whatever the reason" you say, and she's smiling at you again. When she tells you she's made a pot of coffee, you think about asking her to stay forever.

It's not hard to imagine. You can envision easily how every morning could start with smiles this wide if every morning you woke to find Santana and a pot of ready-made coffee in the kitchen.

You say _thank you _instead and you take a seat across from her at the breakfast bar.

It's almost weird how weird it doesn't feel, because you're certain that maybe it should feel at least a little weird. Not just that she's here like she is all natural and normal, but because she's here like she is acting natural and normal when last night was so far away from either. Or it was natural but not normal. Or it felt normal, but…

"What you thinking about, Britt?"

Her words interrupt everything you're thinking about and you slide your face to blank when you look up at her. "Nothing," you say, taking a sip of your coffee and clearing your thoughts, "just going over the day in my head; I have meetings this morning, and then." You pause as you try and recall what you're doing with Quinn today. "Oh, I think I'm meeting Quinn's mom this afternoon; I finally get to ask what she's so concerned about." Santana's eyes go wide but she doesn't comment, so you carry on, "Which reminds me, I need to call Sam for a lift."

"You don't have your car?"

"My scooter," you correct her, "and no. I left it at the campaign office last night, so."

Her eyes drop to her coffee cup when you mention last night and you watch as her face gets all beautiful from thinking, "About last night," she says, her voice sombre, "I didn't mean to get so bitchy about the Rachel thing. I just."

"It's fine. Really."

You shrug your shoulders and she meets your eyes again. "It's not," she says, holding your gaze, "I'm a bitch to everyone else; I don't want to be a bitch to you."

You think it's maybe the second sweetest thing you've ever heard.

You just smile and now it's her that shrugs. She says she should probably get going and you have no more reason to keep her here so you agree that she probably should. You tell her that you need to shower, you need to dress.

While she collects her shoes and blazer from your spare room, you take your cups to the sink and fix Lord T some breakfast. You don't even realise that you're humming to yourself until she comes up behind you and asks for the tune. Yet you don't know, you don't remember, and you really didn't know that you were humming.

When you turn around to face her she's waiting for you.

"I'm gonna go," she says, jingling her car keys up in the air, "thank you for letting me stay though; I appreciate it a lot."

"Thank you for coming over."

You reach out and pull at her blazer before she turns away, because you know that you can do this now; you know that after all of the touches last night, after all of the long moments learning how to hold each other, that you can bring her into a hug and it not be the wrong thing to do.

Her arms go around your back and yours fit perfectly around her shoulders.

You breathe in the smell of her hair and the scent of her skin, and you just hold her.

You don't remember what words she uses to say goodbye, you're not sure of the way exactly you wave her off when she opens your front door and returns to the world outside; yet none of that even matters. You held everything that matters to you tight within your arms, and everything that matters to you, held you right back.

…


	8. Nothing Other Than Friendly

You're in the van, next to Sam; the windows are down, the sun is shining, and the radio, though loud and thumping, isn't drowning your thoughts out today so much as amplifying them. You're buzzed. The last two days have been like one long continuous work shift. Not only have you been shadowing Quinn as much as necessary to collect footage, but you've also been in meetings with Holly regarding this show, meetings with other producers to discuss the viability of Quinn appearing on their shows and meetings with your own post-production team to put the polish on the final product which sees its first airing tomorrow night at 9pm.

You're exhausted. But you're buzzing.

It's the same for you in the days before a new episode of Fondue for Two hit's the airways; like a nervous excitement which churns your belly one way while turning your mind the other. One minute you're _YAY _and certain of your success, and the next you're fairly terrified and sure you're about to end not only your own career but probably that of Sam's too. With this Rock The Vote feature, you don't know how to feel.

You're genuinely excited for the things you have in store. Ever since you mentioned Rachel Berry, Quinn has been more than open to your suggestions of how to liven your side of the show up, and the schedule you have in place for filming next week is a darn sight more exciting than the things you've covered the last two weeks. But still; the first show is tomorrow and from the early edits you've seen so far, Quinn comes across about as exciting as watching grass grow, whereas Rachel comes across as the feeling you get after smoking the grass.

You think you know who's going to make the best first impression.

You just hope that when it comes to lasting impressions, you can do enough to give Quinn a fair shot. You hope that Quinn can do enough to give herself a fair shot.

Today you're covering her speech at the UCLA campus. When Quinn had first mentioned the Bruins to you and Sam, Sam had fist pumped his excitement at covering something sports related, yet Quinn had quickly corrected the misassumption and assured you that the Bruin Republicans are the premier conservative group on campus at UCLA. Neither you nor Sam found anything to fist pump after the reveal.

You've learned some things about conservative politics the last couple of days. Or rather, Judy Fabray has educated you somewhat on _her _conservative politics the last couple of days and you're really not so sure that you're a fan. Of Judy or her politics.

She's not a fan of you. Or your show.

Her first words upon meeting you had illuminated her primo-concern that MTV is a nothing but a platform for modern day pornography and the first step on the road to ruin for many young and impressionable girls. Quinn had rolled her eyes at her mother's side. You just told her you wouldn't mind at all if she didn't watch the channel anymore and she assured you that she'd never watched it before and really never intends to.

You didn't really talk too much after that. You'd been forced to listen; you were covering Quinn giving a presentation to a group of Judy's concerned friends, but you honestly didn't find the need to converse much anymore. Everyone just seemed really annoyed. And they didn't seem really all that concerned about anyone. You've always thought that concern meant to care, yet apparently it's more about fighting than caring, and you've never been a fan of the fight.

Not that kind of fight anyway.

You've decided that your fight is to show Quinn as more than the sum of her parents. You're sure that there's more to her; you've seen that she hides it deep down, but she does care. She cares about Santana, she cared about the kids at the Art Studio even if it somehow hurt her to do it, and she cared enough about you the night at that club to shelter your side and make you feel protected. That's the side of her you want your audience to see.

And that's what keeps you buzzing, even in the face of yet another speech to yet another conservative organisation; the thought of pushing Quinn to shine and being there to show the shine when she eventually achieves it.

Sam reaches across to turn the radio down and you shake your thoughts from your head to give him your attention. He's smiling the same as you are and you know he's sharing the same nervy yet amped up feeling that you're experiencing; you're a team. You fly or flop together.

"We're pretty much here," he says now, and when you take note of the scenery sliding past your window you see that he's right. You've spent a lot of time on this campus. Not only is Mercedes a student here, but you yourself have been a special guest here on more than one occasion during promotional tours for your show. Fondue for Two is a college favourite. _You're _a college favourite, and aside from the circumstances which bring you here, you're more than happy to be back.

…

The crowd which is awaiting your arrival soon lets you know that the campus as a whole is happy to have you back too. You sometimes forget that you're famous; following Quinn around the last two weeks and existing in a bubble where no one really knows who you are has only served to reinforce that feeling, yet here, amongst those that thrive on the _cool _of pop culture and who keep the cogs constantly turning through the platform of social media, you have no chance of pretending you're anything close to anonymous.

Everybody knows your name and everybody wants a piece of you.

You actually keep a stack of photo cards in the back of the van, ready to sign and distribute when the needs arises, and it's those you head for while Sam unloads his equipment and gets talking to the tech guy who's guiding him through where it is he's supposed to set up.

The image on the cards is a rather dashing head shot of Lord Tubbington and next to the small super-imposed paw print in the bottom left corner, there's a space for you to sign your name. It was your insistence that the picture was of your cat instead of you; not only because you believe he is the true star of the show, but also because you've never quite gotten over the weirdness of having to sign your name across your own face. You like your face, sure, but that doesn't mean you want to spend all day looking at pictures of it.

You don't even realise that Quinn has arrived at first. You're giving out cards and posing with people for impromptu phone-taken-photos and you're genuinely enjoying yourself. You're not mainstream famous enough for exposure to have ever been an issue, and situations like this, where you just get to meet people who love your show and want to share that news with you is all kinds of awesome. You've answered questions about your cat, you've teased them with ideas for what the next season might bring, and most importantly, you've told everyone here to look out for the special Rock The Vote edition of Fondue you'll be putting out soon.

You only really notice Quinn when you notice Santana at her side.

It's not a surprise to see her, you knew from Quinn that she was travelling here with Santana today, yet still, when you catch that first glimpse, when recognition floods your senses, you can't help but pause what you're doing to smile.

At her. Not for anyone else. Not for the girl in front of you who's still chattering on in your ear about internships and resumes, _and oh my god, it would just be so amazing if I could come and work on your show! _

You mumble something about _sure, maybe_, and you stand from your spot at the end of the van. The doors are wide open, you're still surrounded by a small crowd, yet you're now buzzing in a different way. An even better way. And you want to be by her side.

You haven't spoken to her again since Tuesday morning. She hasn't called you and you haven't called her and while you might have spent a good long time wondering at what was holding you back or what was holding her back, right now that question seems like the least important thing in the universe.

You focus on Quinn as you walk across to where she's standing and you focus most entirely on keeping your manner professional, because Santana or not, your job is important to you and your job right now is still Quinn.

You're not expecting her to pull you into a hug as you say _hello_, but it's not the first time she's hugged you and you're mostly just glad to accept the signs of a probable good mood. "Brittany," she sings into your ear as she lets you go, "I didn't realise we were here to meet your fan club."

She indicates the group of mostly girls still hanging out near your van and you have the good grace to dip your head and feel at least a small flush of embarrassment. "That's nothing," you tell her, shrugging off the spotlight of attention, "they're all hoping to catch a glimpse of Sam doing some heavy lifting; I'm just keeping them amused while they wait."

She looks at you and smirks as if she believes not one word of it. "Nonsense! Santana and I were watching you for ages from the car; you're hot stuff, Brittany Pierce." She takes a moment to wave cutely at the group over your shoulder before turning her attention to Santana, "See? Didn't I tell you this would be fun?"

"Yeah. It's a real laugh riot."

When you attempt to meet Santana's eyes, she isn't looking at you. She's looking over your shoulder, at the group of mostly girls.

"Ignore her," Quinn tells you, taking the opportunity to link her arm through yours and turn you towards the hall where her talk's taking place. "She's only upset because her abuela's entrusted her into my care for the weekend. She doesn't like being on a tight leash."

The words have you turning your head and raising your eyebrow in Santana's direction, yet her focus seems to all be directed on the back of Quinn's head. It's another look that could kill and you can't help the _what happened_ from slipping past your lips.

Your question was meant for Santana, yet it's Quinn who answers. "She didn't go home Monday night. Not the wisest decision to make on the day your grandma gets back from tending to sick family."

She rolls her eyes and again you turn your attention back towards Santana. She is looking at you now and it isn't a look that could kill. It's passive. And it's quiet. Because you're both well aware of where Santana spent Monday night.

You chance a smile because you don't know how not to, and when the corner of her lips lift and she rolls her eyes a whole lot more gently than Quinn did, you know that she's okay.

"My mood's fine," she insists to Quinn as she catches up to keep stride at her side, "it's the company I'm forced to keep that consistently brings me down."

"Carry on the way you are, and I honestly doubt that'll be a problem much longer."

You don't ask and she doesn't tell and from where you're walking you can't catch another glimpse of Santana's eyes unless you make it really obvious. Instead you listen to Quinn's changing tone and her change of conversation and you try and set your mind in the right place to have it dulled yet again by what you only expect to be another round of elongated boredom.

…

You think you may be the first out of the auditorium once Quinn's speech is over. There's a question and answer phase going on now and Sam is still inside making sure he doesn't miss a minute of it, yet you've escaped outside. You just…

You just don't think you're much of a republican. Not even a little bit, really.

When you're one-on-one with Quinn, you don't even think about her politics; she is who she is, with her cool demeanour and crisp cut tones and that little hint of softness slipping out through her seams. On stage she becomes someone different. It's impressive to behold, she really is a sight to be seen when she has the audience eating from the palm of her hand, but when you listen to her words, when you seek out the sense in the sound bites she offers, you're mostly left shaking your head.

It's not like you want to give the whole world a free ride, but you never saw anything wrong with helping people. Especially helping people when they need it the most.

You don't get long to muse melancholy over a political system which still doesn't interest you, because you are still Brittany S Pierce and you do still have adoring fans. They lift your spirits instantly and it's an easy smile that overtakes your face when you open up the van again and bust out more autographs. You think you recognise half the girls; you're certain that some of them are collecting their second and third signatures, and one brunette in particular has definitely posed you for enough pictures to fill a whole photo album, but it's all fun and it's all harmless and it all returns your mood to its earlier heights.

You sign for a good long time before you tell everyone you have work to do and send them away. Not that the ten feet they back off is particularly _away_, but it is far enough for you to open up your laptop and go through your emails. You have more post-production meetings this afternoon and you're also due on MTV news in the morning to talk about the show and pimp it out some more before tomorrow night's airing. Your inbox is currently inundated with schedules, revised schedules, re-revised schedules…

The hand that thrusts a blank piece of paper under your eyes doesn't catch your attention too much; your fan-girls be persistent, you get that. But when you hear _Miss_, when you hear _could I please get your autograph_ in that voice you're sure speaks in all of your dreams, your attention is captivated.

She's caught her bottom lip between her teeth, she's affected the perfect shy looking fan-girl pose, and her eyes are alive with something like teasing, or taunting, or something else entirely enticing.

It's not your fault if you can't speak for a moment.

She's just so… Everything you're not expecting and everything you want.

You stall for time to find your sentences by turning and taking one of the pictures of Lord Tubbington from the stack by your side and forming your well practiced signature in the space that's provided. The heart you draw at the end you always include in every autograph, yet the three kisses you finish with are an extra flourish you design just for her.

You're smiling when you look up at her.

"Here," you say, holding the picture out, and when her fingers grasp the other end you don't let go. You hold on the same as her, you meet her eyes, you raise your eyebrow, "So, how long have you been a fan?"

She's still playing shy and you play your part just as well, and even if it is only playing, it's so damn nice to acknowledge the chemistry and just have fun for one second with the buzz that's between you.

"Ages and ages," she gushes, once you let go of your end of the picture, "I have posters up on all my walls and I've never missed a show. You're my absolute favourite, Miss Pierce."

"Please, call me Brittany."

You wink at her, and you see the softening. You see as she becomes Santana, as the shy goes out of the window and she just fixes you with her own special brand of bashful. You know the eye roll is coming before it arrives and you're already laughing at her before she gets to perform it.

"You're kinda silly," you say, when she reclaims your gaze.

"You think?"

Your face is breaking into its million-mega-watt smile and you're a hundred percent certain that it's all for her. "Definitely," you tell her, and she smiles a million mega-watts right back at you.

You ask if she wants to sit and she's by your side in an instant. The width of the back of the van is wide and both the doors are swung open, yet you can still feel the heat of her when she measures her distance. Her elbow grazes yours and you feel it. When she turns herself slightly, when she pulls up her knee to rest one leg lightly across the other, her skin touches your skin and you silently thank every force in the universe that today you both decided to wear shorts.

It's ridiculous again. It's her bare knee against the edge of your bare thigh, yet it's really all you can focus upon, as if all of your nerve endings have gotten together and decided to congregate in the one single spot where her body touches yours.

Your hand drops to her knee like it belongs there.

It's friendly, it's nothing other than friendly, but still.

"You haven't called," you say when she raises her eyes up from studying the place where you touch her. Because you have been wondering; you know what held you back, yet you still wonder about her.

Her hand comes down to rest on yours and she traces soft circles slowly across the top. "I've been busy," she tells you, "Quinn wasn't kidding about my abuela; she threw a fit Tuesday morning. This is my first taste of freedom since."

You say _sorry_. You didn't mean to get her into trouble with her family. You more than sense that there are a whole lot of issues there that you're yet to even touch upon, and being the cause of her latest hardship isn't something you'd ever wish for. She just stops turning her circles though and looks you straight in the eye, "No way, Britt," she says, her head shaking a little, "Monday night was worth it. I'm not sorry and neither should you be."

She shrugs away her sentence like it's no big deal and her hand lifts from yours as she follows through with the motion. She tucks her hair back behind one ear and she turns her head away from yours. "You didn't call me either," she says, her words spoken to the building in the distance instead of at you.

It'd be sweet if you didn't crave her eyes on you so much, and you squeeze her knee gently to call her back your way. "I've been super busy too; this is actually the most time I've had the last two days to do anything other than work."

"It's good I didn't call then?"

"No way." She dips her brow curious and you continue on, "Awesome friends call each other _all _the time, even if they are busy."

She smiles and asks _yeah_, and you nod most seriously, "It's in the code."

"I haven't seen the code."

"It's in there; you just have to trust me."

Her smile stays strong even as her eyes dip down, and again you let your fingers apply the slightest pressure to her knee to lift her gaze back to yours.

You're about to say something profound; you can feel the words about awesome friends and how much they trust each other forming on the tip of your tongue, yet Sam is in your eye-line before your mouth has set to open, and you lift your hand from Santana's knee and shoot a small wave his way instead.

He's smiling that smile at you.

The one which calls you _The Woman Whisperer_.

"Quinn's just finishing up in there," he says, his thumb arching back over his shoulder. Next he puts on his other smile, the one he uses to charm the ladies for himself. "Hey Santana," he chirps, his face just beaming in her direction, "it's about time Britt got herself a bodyguard to keep all the fan-girls at bay."

You'd forgotten about them.

When you look up, they're still there, just a small crowd, but a crowd all the same.

You wave. You flush.

"Sam," you whine a little when he laughs at your discomfort, "they're not fan-girls, they just, they love Lord Tubbington. They're all really into cats."

He only laughs harder and agrees they probably are. When you look at Santana she's shaking her head again and she looks like she wants to join Sam in his laughter. "I didn't mean it like _that_," you groan, and you swear you'd flip them both off if… Well, if one of them wasn't Santana.

Sam reaches over and ruffles your hair and you're not sure if you want to die more or if you want to kill more. "I'm gonna go get the rest of the stuff," he tells you, winking as he walks backwards away from the van. You think that's the end of it, that the guy who's always got your back won't embarrass you any further, but no, he has more. He points again at Santana, his smile stretching, "Good luck keeping the ladies at bay; everybody wants a bit of our Britt."

You drop your head and you feel your ears burning.

Actually burning.

You mumble something like _I hate him_ yet Santana doesn't say a word.

When you look up her attention is focused again on the few remaining stragglers who seem intent to just stand around and watch you. "Hey," you say, and when she doesn't answer you shuffle a little closer again and nudge her shoulder with yours. "Stop sending death glares to my groupies, okay? I'm gonna need all of them tomorrow night to help boost my ratings; you're really not helping here Santana."

She catches your eye and she looks a little sheepish. You coax her smile out with yours and again she rolls her eyes away, "Is it always like this?" she asks, and you need her to elaborate. "Like this," she throws a cursory gesture in the fan-girls' direction, her eyebrows dipping, "you're not a piece of meat Britt; it's fucking rude the way they're all staring at you."

It's probably fucking rude the way you're now staring at her.

You think that feisty and protective with just a slight hint of jealousy is your new favourite thing. You don't say that though. "If it makes you feel any better," you tell her, seeking to pacify her dipping brow, "I wouldn't give my meat to any of them."

It's a terrible analogy. _Terrible_. Yet she's obviously pleased enough with your answer to slip back into a smile, "Yeah?" she asks, and you just nod and stay silent.

She considers you for a moment and then she looks back across at the girls. "I bet none of them have your phone number either."

"They absolutely don't."

She smiles and she looks smug and she continues on her roll. "And no way any of them are even close to being your awesome friend."

She looks so pleased with herself and you just adore her. You don't stop yourself though, you still slide your face to that deadpan place and tell her quite firmly, "In training".

It stops her smug. It brings a different look to her face as she questions you with her eyes.

"Pick up the phone sometime; think of it as homework."

She scrunches her nose when you say _homework_, and you seek to make it easier for her. "Okay, just think of it like a first assignment; you call me and you get an A on the road to awesome. It's simple Santana, friends do it all the time."

"You're mocking me now, aren't you?"

"I am," you assure her. "But only a little bit, and only for your own good. I said I'd teach you; you really shouldn't start out by questioning my teaching methods."

She smiles delightfully and you're tempted to give her the A already. You're tempted to tell her she's already filled in all the letters of awesome and she's halfway to being graded somewhere close to heaven. You don't though.

You widen your eyes as Quinn comes into your periphery, you stand from your spot at the back of the van and you try and remember what not loving Santana might possibly look like.

"Quinn," you say when she arrives at your side, yet you can see the way her gaze is pointed, you can see the thoughts forming behind her eyes.

"What's this?" she asks, and you're not sure how to answer.

"It's a break from the bullshit you were spouting inside."

Santana speaks and you both turn to look at her. She's smiling at Quinn, albeit less than genuinely, and you're really not sure if she wants to calm the situation or blow it wide open. "Britt here was just filling me in on how the show's looking for tomorrow; sounds good, Q. Maybe we can bring down Berry yet."

When she lifts and wiggles her eyebrows you know that she's hoping for everything calm. You want to chance a look at Quinn, you want to know if she sees all of the things which seem so obvious to you.

To her, Santana should be no more than your passing acquaintance.

Just the thought of something so far from the truth has you drawing your lips into your mouth to bite back the smile.

Santana's eyes flick to your lips. You shouldn't have been watching her.

When Quinn turns to you your cheeks are pink and her smile is less than friendly.

"We need to talk, Brittany," is all she says, and then she's summoning Santana back to her side and walking towards her car.

You'd love to talk. You'd love to lift the lid off the whole stinking can of worms you can feel festering beneath your feet and just be done with it. Yet…

Your eyes fix again on Santana and you appreciate her slow reveal.

Quinn has already folded herself into the car and it leaves your gaze free to wander. You watch Santana pause before she opens the passenger side door, you watch her lift the photo-card you gave her up to her eyes to shield her view from the sun, and for a moment you just stare.

Then you point to her, you fashion your hand into the international symbol for telephone, and then you point back at yourself. You also shoot her a double thumbs up. You may be new at this whole teaching deal, Santana may be your first student, yet already you're getting the feel for positive reinforcement, and you really, _really _want to reinforce all of her positives.

…

The meetings you spend the afternoon in are long and laborious and you work really hard, yet you love what you do and this is all a part of it. When you and Sam first began this adventure, spread out on your bed with your story-boarded idea for Fondue for Two perched precariously between you, you had no clue of where the adventure would take you. So far you're still loving every minute of it. Not so much your current assignment outside of these hallowed walls, but in here, in the cutting rooms and production rooms and the places where the magic happens, you feel like king of the castle.

Not that you still get to make all of the decisions, especially in this instance where the show isn't really yours in the same way that Fondue for Two is; yet you do still get listened to though. You wouldn't sign your contract until MTV assured you that you would still have a say, and you utilise that little negotiation point at every given opportunity.

Today you've been mostly overruled - even Sam stood against you - but you can live with it okay. The high-ups are worried about what's been shot, they're seriously concerned that Rachel's going to have everything sewn up at the end of the first week, and that doesn't bode at all well for either viewing figures as a whole or for the grand finale and the resulting telephone vote at the end. It's now been decided that the majority of what's going to be shown is pretty much you. Quinn will be the feature, they can't do it any other way, but practically every shot you've seen, now features you in some way.

They're calling it what they hope will be the _Brittany Effect, _courtesy of Holly.

You mostly just think they're all mad.

You're not camera shy though and you're fine with being overruled when you yourself can't come up with any other quick fix idea to save Quinn's chance at a first impression.

For today though, you're done. Mike's text you to see if you want to meet him down at his Uncle's dance studios to work out the night-before-a-show tension, and you're considering that option alongside the one where Sam asked if you wanted to come over to his and just get tanked.

You're busy again tomorrow; you have the news show in the morning and then it's a whole day spent at your own offices applying all the finishing touches and setting next week's schedule into stone. You're pretty sure that getting tanked tonight won't help that in any way. You could dance though; it's been close to a week and your muscles are telling you with tension that they need to be stretched.

You have your phone in your hand ready to type out a reply to Mike when it starts blasting out your ringtone. You see her name and you don't listen to any of Lil Wayne before hitting the button to answer.

"Hey," you say, and then you say, "Santana."

There's a pause before she answers and you use it to picture her smiling.

"_Brittany," _she says, and then she says, _"Hi."_

You could be done. You're certain that if a thunderbolt hit you right now, in this instant, you'd be fine with it. She just, with her voice…

"_Are you free?"_ she asks, cutting off your inner thoughts.

"I am. Are you?"

"_I'm never free," _she laughs, _"I have however escaped for a while. I thought I'd use the time to turn in my first assignment."_

Your laughter joins hers because it wasn't at all what you were expecting. "It's an excellent first assignment," you tell her, settling down into a smile. "You're definitely getting your A."

"_I am? As easy as that?"_

"It's your first go at awesomeness; I want you to be encouraged enough to try it again."

You imagine her smiling more at your words and it's actually driving you crazy.

"San," you say, once the thought forms solid. "How escaped are you?"

"_Escaped enough. Why? What do you have in mind?"_

"I don't know… Coffee? Maybe?"

"_I could definitely be convinced to go for a coffee _actually_."_

You smile higher. "How do I convince you?"

"_I don't know, Britt; surprise me."_

You think about it hard for there's a thousand different ways in which you wish to surprise her. For now though, you settle for what you know, for what you've learned already.

"Please?" you say, and you say it like you mean it, because nothing would please you more than for her to be with you right now. And she agrees, like you knew she would, because you suspect, you're kind of coming to know, that all of her reasons are exactly the same reasons as yours.

…

She picks you up from the offices on Colorado Avenue and when she says she knows a perfect place nearby, you're left wondering again at the ease with which you please each other. It's like you fall into a natural rhythm when you're with her, and her Ying slides perfectly against your Yang and everything just fits into place.

She's still wearing her shorts when you slip into the passenger seat at her side, but she's covered her t-shirt with a hooded sweater now, and you have to ask about the lettering, "UCLA?" you say, dipping your brow. "Have you been holding out on me, San?"

She laughs as she slides the car into gear and pulls away from the sidewalk, and she assures you she hasn't. "This is old school campus designs," she says, before switching her attention back to the road, and you just note the frayed and faded edges without asking anything further.

You like the quiet that settles inside when you sit beside her in the car, and you like the way that you can view her profile unabashed and study her silent reactions. You know that she pouts every time a red light encroaches upon her, and you know that a smug little grin eats away at her face each time she manages to cruise through on a yellow. When someone cuts her up you see her brief flash of anger; yet out of everything, the cutest is the smile she gets and the wave she gives when someone pauses to let her in on the traffic.

It shouldn't be such an enamoured pastime to watch someone driving, but you're pretty sure you could stay happy for an entire around the world road trip if it was Santana sat behind the wheel.

When she pulls into the car park of a coffee place and heads for the drive-through lane you look at her in question.

"Trust me, it'll taste better this way."

She gives you her little smile, the one that lifts just a fraction on each side, and you agree to her request. You find it easy to trust her and you kind of want to see what she has in store for you.

She orders two of the largest coffees they offer and you go for a latte with a whole lot of sugar. She keeps hers black again and you can't help but grin goofy and roll your eyes.

"What?"

"Nothing," you say, but she asks you again. "It's just, it's so clichéd."

"First you mock me and now you're calling me a cliché?"

She's pouting and it's fake, yet you see the small slice of doubt clouding her eyes.

"I'm mostly still just mocking," you tell her, and you wiggle your eyebrows to combat her clouds. "And even if you were a cliché, I'd still want to get coffee with you. Lots of people drink it black and sugar-free… it's doesn't mean at all that you're someone dark and broody."

Now she's smiling and it's not fake. "But I _am_ dark and broody. Have you not seen my car?"

"The car's sexy, San."

"Dark and broody is the same as sexy."

There's the slightest set of challenge to her jaw and again you feel that something tugging, like the excitement that comes from examining the chemistry. You act like you're thinking about it; like you need to measure your words out before you tell her what sexy is.

"I think," you say, trailing your eyes across her body and up towards the drive-through window, "That's our coffee's ready".

You laugh before she does but she soon joins in. She passes you your coffee, she places hers into the holder in the centre console and she starts driving again. You half expect her to set off on a long journey, but she just exits onto the coastal road and heads south for not much longer than ten minutes or so. When she pulls over and off of the road, you wonder at the significance this time; you're parked up on a small bluff overlooking the ocean, and down below you can see the last few strangling surfers making the most of the sunset rays and the days' last waves. It's all really pretty and again you wonder what this place means to her.

You look to her as if to ask, but she just tells you she likes it here, "It's peaceful, you know?"

And you do know.

You follow her lead as she exit's the car, taking your coffee with you, and she guides you over to a weather beaten bench, close to the edge of the small cliff. When she sits, you sit, and you place your coffee cup down in the space that's left between you.

For a while you just enjoy the calm. You can hear the cars on the highway not far behind you and you can hear the roar of the ocean and the shouts and laughter of the people down below you, yet it's still really calming, just sitting here by her side.

When she blows air across the top of her coffee cup, catching a tune when she hit's the little hole to drink from, you look her way and find her smiling.

"Hi," she says when you hold her gaze, and you reply to her the same.

She moves next, lifting her body from the main part of the bench and perching herself up on the backrest instead, with her feet resting down at your side. "Do you ever look at the ocean," she asks you, her gaze touching the distance, "and just marvel at how fucking huge everything is?"

You want to ask if she's ever tried counting the waves.

Instead you tell her _sure_. You tell her that sometimes you look up at the night sky too, and find yourself feeling the exact same thing.

"Right," she says, agreeing with you, "and then you realise how small and insignificant all the other stuff is."

You turn your head back to look at her when she says that; her tone isn't harsh yet you can see the forming of a frown on her face and you have to speak, "Is this where you tell me about all those things that aren't important again?"

She flicks her gaze to you and back out to the ocean. "Maybe. I don't know. Maybe I think I should tell you about some of the things that are?"

You're still looking, and you see her eyes flick back to you again; quick and furtive before shying away. "Santana," you say, turning around in your seat until you're fully able to face her. "I'd love to hear more stuff about you, I really would; but, you don't have to. Just because I shared that stuff with you, doesn't mean…"

She silences you by holding out a finger and laying it across your lips, "Maybe I want to share with you." She speaks it in a whisper, and all you do is smile. "I don't want you hearing shit from Berry and thinking…"

She trails off and it's easy to pick up her thoughts, "I wouldn't think bad of you; no matter what, I wouldn't think bad of you because of the things people say. I like you, San, and that's not going to change no matter how many crazy stories Rachel tells me about steak knives."

Her eyes go wide and her stare is instant.

"She told you about that?"

"Uh-huh."

She shakes her head and her voice jumps up far too many octaves to ever be comfortable. "I can't believe she still tells that stupid story; did she at least give you context?"

You shrug your shoulders and smile at the indignant look on her face, "She said you wanted to cut out her vocal chords."

"Damn straight, I did." She lifts one of her hands and runs it through her hair, still softly shaking her head the whole time. "I'd only been back at my dad's for _three_ days Britt, and she turns up with the campest damn barbershop quartet I've ever seen in my life, singing some messed up crapfest about _tears in heaven_."

From what you've seen of Rachel, you can completely imagine that happening.

"She's lying about the steak knife though," she says, and you tilt your head to the side while you wait for her to elaborate. "It was just a stupid butter knife or something; it didn't even have a serrated edge."

"That was still kind of mean Santana," you say, but you're smiling at her as you say it.

"I know, I know, but… she was _singing _at me. All the stuff I was dealing with and she thought she could save me with a song."

You wonder how you would react if that had been you. If Rachel Berry in all her full voiced fantasticness had insisted on singing your sadness out to you in perhaps one of your darkest moments. "You should have found a machete," you tell Santana in all seriousness. "Or a chainsaw could've worked quite well, I guess."

She laughs and accepts your suggestions with a thoughtful nod. "Honestly," she says, settling down into a small smile, "I mostly just wanted her to stay the hell away from me. I wasn't _actually_ going cut her or anything."

You roll your eyes to state the obvious and take a sip or two of your coffee. It's already cooled, even with the giant size of it, and you place it between both of your hands to try and hold in the warmth.

While you're drinking you watch her. Her gaze has hastened away to the horizon again, and again you wish that you could climb inside her head and know what it is that she's thinking. "San," you say when the silence becomes too quiet, "you really were friends with her once, right?"

She shrugs and looks away. She looks back again. "Yeah. Once upon a time."

You kind of guessed it. Even within the unimaginable, you somehow sensed that it was true. You don't say anything, she's holding your gaze and searching your eyes, and you just let her find whatever it is that she's looking for before she speaks again.

"I was such a brat growing up."

It's nothing like what you were expecting her to say. You tilt your head again but she just smiles at you and leans forward, scooting back down to reclaim the seat at your side. "It's true, Britt; everything that Berry is now, I was back then. I was totally insufferable, I honestly don't even know how my parents coped with me," her smile has caught her lips properly now and her eyes are lighting up even as the sun dips down over the horizon. "We used to put on these shows - _god_, they were _so _awful - and we'd sing and dance; Rachel would insist on mostly solos and I'd insist I was the director…"

She trails off, yet you don't stop staring at her.

"What?" she asks and you just shake your head.

"Nothing. Just… I bet you were so adorable."

"Oh no, we were definitely insufferable; ask Berry, she's probably still got the whole video box-set."

She says it and her words end abruptly. Her brow creases and her frown turns down.

It's your turn to ask _what_, but she doesn't answer. She sips at her cup some more, her eyes again looking off towards the ocean. When she does turn back, she's wearing the look which says _doesn't matter_, yet you don't give her the time to speak the words.

"I still bet you were adorable," you say, leaning over until your head rests gently against her shoulder. "And now I totally want to hear you sing."

You feel her shoulders shake and you know she's silently laughing at your request.

"I'm not joking San; awesome friends share their talents."

"Wanky."

It's your turn to laugh now. You lift your head from her shoulder to insist you didn't mean anything like what she's insinuating you meant, yet when you see her face you say nothing. When her tongue pokes out and moistens her lips, you look.

It's definitely a talent you want to share.

You bring your coffee cup up to your mouth again, and her smile turns into something knowing.

"I don't sing anymore, BrittBritt," she says, her soft voice doing nothing to ease your tension, "I have other talents though; awesome talents…"

Awesome talents which you're not at all sure awesome friends _should_ be sharing.

You leave the sentence untended and you look out to the sea. It's getting dark kind of quickly now and you can't see so much to count the waves, yet you're sure that there's a giant one just getting ready to roll over you. When her hand drops into your lap, you take hold of it without thought, and when her thumb rubs gentle against the skin of your finger, you just smile.

It's a small wave, and it's bearable, and you just hold tight to her hand as you let it wash over you without carrying you away.

You want her. You want her so bad that half of your thoughts have become consumed with the craving; yet you want her properly. You want all of her, everything, and that means waiting until you're sure that she has everything to give. Until you're sure that she's allowing herself to give it.

You think you're sure. You're almost certain you're sure.

You're just waiting for that one thing more. That one silent secret you still aren't sure of.

When her phone rings it startles your thoughts and her hands slips quick from yours. She stands before answering and you do your best not to listen. Not that it matters. She's speaking completely in Spanish and the only words you understand you can't put into any context. You just watch and wait and you wince at her tone.

Her flurry of words comes to a sudden stop and you can only assume that whoever was at the other end of the line has just hung up on her. You wait for her to turn back your way. You wait a long minute. Possibly more.

"Santana?" you say, and her hard voice tells you that she's really late to supper.

"I'm so sick of this," she sighs out as she turns round to face you, and you want to go to her. You wait though, you hold yourself still as she speaks some more. "I can't even take a crap these days without having to explain exactly how I laid it; I'm just…" she sighs again and you go to move, "…I'm just so tired of it all, Britt, so fucking tired."

When you get close enough to see her face clearly, you give her your newest smile, the one you're sure you've only started wearing since you first met her, and you reach out and catch her hand again. "I'm willing to help you draft that declaration of independence, if you want?" You feel her fingers tighten around yours and it makes you say more, "We can do it in all different colours, like a rainbow; I'm really quite the badass when it comes to glue and glitter."

She smiles, but it's not her _Santana_ smile, and you can feel her sadness.

"Nice thought, really, but my abuela only understands declarations of war."

You shrug, you pull her closer, "Don't forget the great big grizzly bear arms, though."

"For the war?"

"No Santana," you say, and her brow dips down. "For the great big grizzly bear hugs, silly."

You pull her closer again until you can fit her inside your arms and then you don't let go. It's not your place to write declarations for her, especially not declarations of war, but you want her to know, you _need_ her to know, that if the time comes, maybe when the time comes, you'll be ready to fight by her side.

She holds on just as tight as you do, and she doesn't let go.

…

By the time Santana had dropped you back at your office to pick up your scooter, she'd found the smile for her face again. It wasn't huge, it wasn't the smile you wish she could wear, but it was better than the non-smile of before, and when she pulled you in for another long hug before you left the car, you felt okay to let her go.

"It's nothing I'm not used to," she told you, "and I'm still saying the trouble's totally worth it."

"Because you love coffee so much?"

"Exactly, Britts." And she'd smiled that nearly normal smile and told you to get out of her car and that had been that. It was too late to go dance out the tension of the night-before nerves and it was too late to even consider the possibility of getting tanked, so your big night before a big show, your most tense night amongst many tense nights, has been spent just lounging about with your cat, taking a long bath, and now you're flicking through your emails in bed before you're tired enough to ignore the tension and finally go to sleep.

When your phone vibrates in your hand to let you know you have a new text message, you exit your emails and you smile when you see Santana's name.

Her text asks if you're sleeping yet, and your reply asks _why_ and _have you escaped again_.

You wait a while for her to text back, but your phone eventually starts ringing instead and you bring it up to your ear with a softly spoken _hey._

"_Brittany," _she says, and her voice is just as soft as yours is. _"Why are you still awake?"_

"Because you called me."

"_Oh. Sorry… Did I wake you?"_

You laugh and tell her no, you tell her you wouldn't mind if she had, and you tell her you're just getting ready now to go to sleep. She accepts your words with silence and you ask her what she's calling for; if there's a reason.

"_I'm turning in my second assignment."_

"You are? Already?"

"_I am. If I want to get to awesome, I'm gonna have to work hard, right?"_

"Technically, if we're talking awesome, San, then I think we can say coffee was your second assignment; this is already your third."

"_The third already, huh? Don't I get something special for the third Britt?"_

Her tone drops as she says it and you want to give her everything special.

"Sure. Like… a smiley face on your report card?"

When she laughs at you, you don't change your mind about the special.

"_I'm actually getting a report card? You're seriously going to grade me on friendship?"_

"I don't know Santana; do you want a report card?"

The silence lets you picture her eyebrows dropping down as she considers the question, and so, so much you want to see through the phone. _"It could be cute," _she says when her voice picks up again; _"I can put it up next to the picture of your autographed cat. Your ridiculously enormous autographed cat." _

You're sure she adds on the end comment for good measure, but it doesn't matter. You see through her ridiculously enormous diversion and hear exactly what she said, "You put the picture up?"

She lets her silence answer you and you don't say anymore, you just follow her change of subject and get to what you imagine is most likely her real reason for calling. She says your name serious, her voice still soft, and you strain to listen to her words. _"I didn't get to make any declarations,"_ she says, and you strain even harder, _"I don't think I'll be making many breaks for freedom anytime soon, either."_

"Oh," you say, and you think that might cover it. You feel your lips tug down, you slump your shoulders back into your pillow, and you look for words. "That's okay though, right? You'll still be hanging out with Quinn, so…"

You don't finish what you want to say. You don't say it'll be okay because you'll still get to see each other. You just float it out there and hope that she catches it.

"_Tomorrow night," _she says, long after you've wondered if she's given up speaking, _"Quinn's got that viewing party at hers; you'll be there, right?"_

You won't. You never go to viewing parties. You and Sam still do exactly the same now as you did after you uploaded your very first episode of Fondue for Two; you sit and you hold each other and you hope for the best. You wait for Mercedes opinion, and only then do you start to breathe again.

You tell her _no. _The regret in your voice is genuine as you tell her more, "Sam and Mercedes are coming to mine. We kind of always keep it private…" You know that she most likely can't, but you ask her anyway, "…You could come over? Like, if you wanted to?"

You count the pounding beat in your chest as you wait for her to answer. You want the _yes _so very much, but you know that the negativeis more than probable. It doesn't take the sting of disappointment away when she says itthough.

"_If I could," _she tells you, and you know the rest. _"I really can't though; I have to go to Quinn's or I can't go anywhere. I probably shouldn't complain. Quinn throws a mean-ass party and it sure beats the hell out of sitting at home taking crap from my abuela."_

You're sure that's true. But still.

You can't help but feel a little sad. Or a little like you want to reconsider your own plans.

Yet you can't, because _Sam_, and he's going to need you to cling to.

When she tells you she has to go, you don't stop her. You thank her for calling, you thank her for coffee, and you tell her for a third assignment she did all sorts of awesome.

"_Before you know it, I'll be the best-awesome-friend you've ever had, Britt."_

And a part of you doesn't doubt her. And a part of you knows it's true. Because you're already certain, in that place which is certain about these sorts of things, that Santana Lopez is the best kind of awesome you're ever going to find.

When she cuts the call, you're no longer worried about the show tomorrow and you're no longer tied in knots of tension and unable to find sleep. You don't go back and check your emails, you don't even bother checking the time. You just smile and you sleep, and you dream about all of the things which just might come to pass in that time before you know it.

…


	9. The Brittany Effect

Rock The Vote is a success.

It's only been two hours since the show first aired, you only have the earliest of indications as to viewing figures and critics' assessments, but as far as the internet is blowing up, it's a resounding success. You and Sam had done the obligatory holding of each other while you watched the show live, and during your second run through where you watched again and commented along on all the action, Mercedes had fired up the laptop and followed the online comments and polls at .

Each week they're going to monitor the crowd favourite through online polling, and much to your surprise, Quinn isn't faring half as bad early on as you feared she might. Holly has called you and screamed _The Brittany Effect! _down the phone-line, surrounded by the cheers and celebration from the official MTV viewing party which you also chose not to attend, but you're still not buying into the hype. You're just a familiar face, and that's what people are reacting too.

Or overreacting to, in some circumstances.

Mercedes loves to read aloud the comments which are particularly bathed in love and adoration, but all each one does is make you shake your head even harder. You're a team, all of you together, and you succeed together as a team; you really don't want to be the only flag-bearer for that success.

Also, it's Quinn's success. Whatever the reasoning behind the numbers, she's only showing a slight dip behind Rachel after this first show and that bodes extremely well for everything you have coming up. If the crowd are already halfway behind her after the mashed together segment you put out this evening, then you can't wait to see how they react when you turn Quinn into a person they can actually relate to. This is her night, and you've already text her with your congratulations.

She wanted to see you earlier today, but you've been far too busy to make the time and so you're meeting for lunch tomorrow instead. The premise that you both stuck to during your one stilted phone conversation was all show based and work related, yet you know the deal; Quinn told you yesterday that you should talk, and you're almost certain that getting you to lunch is her way of singling you out for the purpose of that little chit-chat.

You're not overly worried. You certainly don't feel as though you owe any explanation or disclosure to Quinn about your personal life, or your awesome friendship with Santana, but you're happy to go and hear what she has to say as a way to easily appease her. Maybe when you know the lay of the land, when you know what's occurring with you and Santana beyond your fantasies, or when you know for sure what occurs between Santana and Quinn, maybe then it'll be different and everything will be out in the open and…

You can't even finish that thought without the anxiety escaping to fill your mind.

Even though you don't know the root cause, you more than sense that Quinn would have a problem if she knew that there was something going on between you and Santana. You're a pretty perceptive person when it comes to people and there's been quite a lot to perceive.

You begin to list all the instances out to yourself, but Sam leans across from his place on the sofa to pull the wool of your hat down over your eyes and you forget entirely where you are for the moment. He's laughing at you, yet you make no move to lift the hat back up, and when he lands by your side and does the deed himself, you poke out your tongue in his direction.

It's petulant and it's kind of silly, but underneath the euphoria of a job well done, you're still really distracted. You know that and Sam knows that, and really, you're just glad that Mercedes is laughing heartily over the latest gifs of you on Tumblr or you're sure that she'd know that too. Even Lord Tubbington has called you out on your distraction and spent the last two days sulking in the back room because you keep on forgetting about him.

"You could just call her," Sam says at your side, and you turn away from his eyes before you do more than stick your tongue out. You rearrange your hat back into its correct place atop your head, you throw a quick glance at your phone up on the coffee table, and you grunt.

An actual grunt; like a cross between when Lord Tubbington disapproves of the food choices you're offering and the noise your sister used to make when you'd force her to learn all of your dance routines and latest choreography.

"I'm just saying," He continues, "that it's obvious you're not in the room with us anymore. She's probably waiting for you to call; just do it."

It's an option you've been considering all night. He's not talking about Quinn, of course he's not. He's assuming that the source of your distraction is Santana, and he isn't wrong.

You've spoken to her lots today. She's handed in assignment seven already and you're crazy happy with how seriously she seems to be taking her education. The calls have been short and they've mostly tried to convince you to come to Quinn's party tonight without flat out asking you to come to Quinn's party tonight, but the fact that they've been so frequent has kept you smiling throughout a day which would've otherwise felt too long.

You want to call her now, you think it's probably your turn to call her back, but she _is_ at Quinn's viewing party and you're well aware of the state she's able to party herself into when she gets going with the mood. You don't want a broken conversation and cryptic cut-outs when _'shit gets real' - _and so you leave it.

When you tell Sam you really don't want to call her, his face shows you instantly how much he disbelieves you, and when he says your name you're not really sure if it's a stern tone or a sorrowful one. "Just call her," he says again.

As easy as that.

You're not surprised when Mercedes takes a break from refreshing her computer screen to offer her agreement, "Sam told me the girl is all types of crazy for you; just call her already."

Mercedes' comment swings your eyes back to Sam pretty quick. Normally it'd make you laugh when he pulls the face he's now pulling, but your expression stays monotone. "Not true, Sam."

"Not lying, Britt. I saw you both yesterday, and if that's how Santana acts when she's trying not to like you, I can't wait to see how she acts when she finally gives in."

"We're friends," you assure him again, yet in your mind you insist on _awesome friends_ and you can't help but want to see the more. It makes it hard to keep the smile from your face and when Mercedes repeats the words that Sam had told her yesterday about how into each other you both are, and the blatant attraction you so obviously share, you can't help but smile a little higher.

You're sure that you know what this feeling is, but it's still nice to feel vindicated; to know that you're not imagining the way her eyes shine when she looks at you or the way she's started leaning into you lately as if to constantly seek out your touch.

"I can't call her though," you announce in a sulky tone, and it's nice to lift it from your chest a little. You catch Sam's look, you hear Mercedes say _fool, _and you cement your reasoning; "She's at Quinn's and there's a party and I doubt she's even thinking about me right now. I don't want to disturb her."

The timing of the loud knock at your door that now disturbs you would be comical if it wasn't a quarter to midnight and you weren't a semi-famous single girl living out here on her own. You don't often have to deal with the crazies or with over-familiar fans, but there have been a couple of minor instances which make you now turn your eyes Sam's way instead of immediately rising to open the door.

He puffs his chest out as he stands and Mercedes pulls her shoulders back and pushes the laptop off of her knees and to the side on the sofa. You also stand and attempt a chest puff and you follow Sam's lead as he goes to the door.

He looks through the spy hole. He looks back to you with his eyebrow lifted, and then he swings the door open.

It's not even funny how fast your breath catches, and the sound you make is somewhere between a hiccup and a giggle. A hysterical giggle. Which you swallow inside of a hiccup.

You want to say _Santana_ but you're still swallowing the hysterical.

She's looking at Sam, she's looking at you, her eyes are wide and she's quite possibly the most incredible thing you've ever seen in your life. She's fashioned herself in a way you'd expect for Quinn's party and when your eyes slip down her body in a quest to take her all in, you can't help but note the sublime shortness of the dress. And her legs in those heels are making it harder to breathe than in moments previous, and when you get to her chest, you stop, because you didn't even notice, what with the dress and the legs, but…

Not boobs. Although, it is a really great dress if that was your chosen view.

It's not though; your view has snagged on what she's holding in her hands, at chest height, as if she was going to offer them out as gifts when you opened the door. The door that Sam actually opened. Now she's half holding out to him her offering of what looks like a bottle of champagne and a slightly wilted bunch of flowers from what was probably a late night service station. And she's talking really fast, to Sam, about how amazing the show was and how she wanted to come over and personally extend her congratulations to you both and…

She seems flustered. And she's incredible.

You're not even wondering right now about the whys and the hows of what she's doing here or what possessed her to get here, you're just. She's _here_.

It's all incredible.

When Sam stands back and ushers her into the room behind you while accepting the champagne bottle from her hands, you're thankful that someone actually remembers how to function like a normal human being, and you concentrate on pushing aside the surprise to focus on the facts. "Santana," you say, because that seems like the best fact to start with. Her eyes won't rest on you though. They're chasing about your face and dropping to the floor and flitting back to Sam and focusing on Mercedes, and really, "Santana?"

You say it again and she pauses. You can't help the quiet _hey _that slips past your smile when her eyes fix firm on yours; it's just that sometimes everything else stops and you just see her. And you just have to say hello. When she replies with a quiet _hey _of her own, you can hear the slight flutter of her nerves and you seek to make it less so. You lead her to the sofa and introduce her to Mercedes, you push the laptop further aside and offer her a place to sit on the couch; yet when Sam says he's going to the kitchen to get glasses for the champagne you can't help but stumble over a mumble and follow him out to grab some air. Santana will be alright with Mercedes, everyone is always okay with Mercedes and you know she won't rely on Rachel's stories to form judgements of her own.

You just need a minute to think. To bring some order to the thoughts you're already having. Because Santana is here, again, and in your mind that suggests only one thing - the best thing - because she may be dressed to party, yet she's saved herself for you. At least it looks that way. It feels that way. And you just need a minute, because if Sam's words before were some kind of vindication for how you feel, then you're sure that Santana turning up on your doorstep out of the blue to congratulate you, is vindication of the highest kind.

Sam is watching you entirely amused while you reach up to the cupboard and make a fuss over finding glasses; you have ones for wine but not champagne and you let that fray your thoughts for a moment just to save over thinking the everything else.

"Calm down," he stage whispers across the kitchen space, and you throw him a look that asks something along the lines of _how the hell?_ Because aside from the very fact that she's here and she's incredible, she's also here and your friends are here and now you're nervous too. You want so bad for them to like her as much as you do and to approve of the direction your heart's hastened off to.

When Sam throws an easy arm across your shoulder and asks how come she's even here, you honestly don't have a reply to give him. You think you know the ultimate reason, but you're not sure of the actual reason. So you shrug, you pick up the glasses, and you ask him seriously to please be nice when you return to the lounge.

"I'm always nice," he tells you, his face faking offended.

"Sure you are. But maybe you could be nice without trying to embarrass us?"

"I'd never embarrass you Britt."

"Yes you would," you reply, because yes, he does. "Anyway, I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about Santana; be nice to her."

You're referring to yesterday at the van and he knows it. And he smiles. Really big.

"I was just giving her a nudge," he admits, "jealousy is a great motivator and the fan-girls _were_ looking kind of fierce."

You tell him that you'll be the one looking fierce if he doesn't behave and he gives you his word that he will. It'd be nice if it calmed your nerves just a little, but you're well aware that the glasses are clinking together as you walk back towards the front room, and your nerves haven't calmed one bit.

Santana is here. It's the _best_ surprise ever. And your nerves are set tight with excitement.

…

When you return to the lounge Santana is in conversation with Mercedes about her course at UCLA and you wish you could just stand and listen instead of interrupting their words. Santana's face shows genuine interest and it's nice to see her interacting with someone without the cattiness you always catch when she's sharing words with Quinn. Your presence does interrupt her though, and she trails her eyes away from Mercedes to smile instead at you. She seems a whole lot more relaxed than when you left the room and when you hand over one of the glasses she hands you the flowers she's managed to keep a hold of while you've been gone.

They really are a little wilted and they were obviously a last minute thing purchased during whatever thing brought her here, yet in this moment they're the best bunch of flowers you've ever received. They're way better than any magnificent bouquet the opening nights of your dancing days brought, and they outshine completely the array of bunches you collected after Fondue's first airing.

You say _thank you _and she holds your gaze.

"I know they're lame, but the show was amazing," she tells you, and her words are a lot more measured than the restless ones she threw out at Sam. You shrug a little and you offer more thanks while telling her that you honestly love them, and then Sam is there. He takes the flowers and places them up on the mantelpiece and then he takes the glass from your other hand and makes to fill it with the champagne.

When he reaches across to Santana she covers her glass and says she's not drinking.

"I drove over," she tells you when you look at her in question, "I really can't stay long; I'm hoping Quinn is celebrating hard enough to not notice me missing at all."

Her words only reinforce your earlier feelings about her coming here to see you and how much it means to you. It may be all cloak and dagger and swept away under the sheets, but she wanted to see you, and she came here to see you, and it seems as though she missed out on the partying at Quinn's to be able to get here and see you.

If you weren't so wrapped up in the awesomeness of the realisation, you would pout at the news she can't stay very long, but right now you're just made up that she's here at all.

You're grinning at her. She's outright beaming at you.

You'd maybe stand mute in the moment forever if Mercedes wasn't just inside your periphery and shooting you the kind of look which reminds you that this isn't your own private universe for two.

"No champagne for me either," she says most firmly when Sam leans down to fill her glass.

"None?" he questions.

"Nope. I love the bubbles as much as the next girl, but I've got way better ways I can think of to celebrate." She lifts herself from the couch and clears the place at Santana's side, and then she turns to face you, "Sorry to bail on the party Britt, it's been a blast, but it's time to take my man home and remind him how I rock his world."

She winks your way as she says it and you feel your cheeks pink. Not because of the world rocking; Sam and Mercedes are totally into each other and you imagine they rock the world regularly, but because you notice the small side of sly to her grin. You know that she heard Santana's words about not much time and she's leaving you alone now so as you can make the most of that time together.

You roll your eyes at her and you make the right kind of noises to protest the fact that they are leaving, but it really is only token noises. In truth, you're so glad. If Santana only has a short time, then you want to be selfish and keep that time for yourself. You want her eyes to be only for you. You want a monopoly on all of her words.

You step back and watch as Santana stands to say a warm goodbye to the girl she just met and to accept the loose hug that Sam insists upon sharing with her, and when you walk them to the door, you make your last comments about killing it tonight with the show and talking in the morning. You deflect Mercedes knowing look when Sam tells you to enjoy the rest of your celebrations, and then you close the door. You take a moment and you take a breath and then you turn back around.

Santana is still standing, and she's looking at you and she looks…

Like something which makes you _really _hungry; that whets your appetite and leaves you licking your lips just aching to reach out and sample a taste. Her dress really is that enticing. It's another small - _really small _- black number like the time you saw her at the club, but this time she's not feasting herself on a skanky-snack while you stand aside watching, and her eyes are completely clear and focused. And they're focused completely on you.

She steps towards you or you step towards her and she takes your hand in hers. For a minute she pauses, as if thinking through an action, and then she pulls you towards her and into a hug. "You really were amazing," she whispers into your ear once her arms are around you, yet the words don't touch you half as much as her tone does. Words are just words after all, but the way she makes them sound as she speaks them, has you believing she means all that she says, and that all that she says is only the truth.

As you pull back she says _amazing _once more and you smile. And you flush.

"Santana…"

"What? You were. You actually managed to make Quinn appear vaguely palatable; I'd say that's all kinds of amazing."

You say words to defend Quinn's performance, you speak right past Santana's eye roll and her rising smile to insist that Quinn did enough all by herself to be commended for her own successes, yet Santana's look says it all and her words only confirm what she thinks of your reasoning; "No way," she assures you, her dimples only deepening, "That was all you, Brittany. Credit where credit is due and you definitely deserve all of the credits."

You think she's probably biased.

"Sam did a lot too," you assert, "and the editing team deserve the kudos for the way they put it together. And the soundtrack was pretty cool so that probably helped…"

She puts her finger over your lips again and you fall silent.

"Just take the compliment, Brittany."

So you do, and you tell her _thank you, _and when she smiles at you, you smile at her.

"It really was a great show," she says once more, and you smile a little higher.

When she tugs on your arm it's easy for you to follow her down to sit on the sofa. She reaches over you to the coffee table and picks up your wine glass and hands you back your champagne. "There has to be at least one toast," she insists, "Russell paid a lot of money for that bottle; it'd be such a shame to waste it."

You take the glass and when she offers yet another round of words to praise your greatness you take a small sip. You absolutely love how the bubbles fizz their way to the back of your throat as you drink, and even though you can't tell at all the expensiveness of what you're drinking, you do appreciate the sensation.

You don't really appreciate that you're not sharing the sensation.

You offer the glass out to her, but she shakes her head, "I'm driving, remember?"

"Sure you are, but we're toasting here. One sip is entirely legal when there's toast involved."

Her head tilts as she considers you and you keep your face straight and earnest. "One sip," she says, "and only because I want to toast how great you were too."

Your fingers are around the stem of the glass and when you hand it across, her fingers slide intentionally across yours. Your eyes slide to her eyes and her lips curve up again into that knowing smile of last night, the one that looks as though there's a secret she's managed to somehow uncover and now she wants to share it with you.

Yet you know the truth of that secret already. You think you've known it since the minute you first met her. It _is_ all kinds of satisfying to see the knowledge paint smiles across her face as well though… She's always smiled at you; it's just now you think she's starting to understand what it is that's fuelling the frequency of the smiles.

"To all of the amazing which is Brittany S Pierce," she says, and you watch her lips as they touch the glass and you watch her throat when she swallows. When she passes the glass back your way, you give her back your gaze.

"We should toast to you too," you tell her, your eyes not wavering.

"To me? What did I do?"

You want to tell her lots of things. Instead you tell her she managed to escape again, "We should totally make a toast to your freedom."

It makes her laugh, and the laughter makes you turn in your seat and bring your legs up onto the couch to face her. It's kind of funny; she's all dolled up and screaming sexy seduction, and you're sat next to her, your hair unwashed and hidden beneath your woollen cap, with your clothes all casual and perfect for slouching.

"This isn't really freedom," she tells you when your eyes have stopped admiring the line of her dress. "This is just a taster course for what freedom could feel like."

"Well I like it," you say, "I'm one hundred percent behind a free Santana. If there was a wrist band, I'd buy it, and I love signing online petitions."

She smiles her adorable smile and you lift the glass up to your lips. When you pass it back to her, you say _to freedom_, and again you watch her as she takes a drink.

You'd like to consume the whole bottle this way; just taking little sips between the two of you and making endless toasts, yet you know reality means you only have her for a short while and it makes you place your glass back down on the table and forget the champagne completely. You lean back against the sofa and you just look at her for a moment.

"I can't believe you're actually here," you say after awhile, because you actually still kind of can't. Her eyes slip down to her hands resting in her lap and you lean across a little and claim one for yourself. Her eyes lift back up to meet your own and she looks like she can't believe it either; almost as if she's confused to be sat here on your sofa, sipping champagne and holding your hand.

"Is it okay I'm here?" she asks in the timid tone you haven't heard for a while, and you tell her absolutely.

"It's awesome you're here. The best surprise ever."

"Really?"

Her head slips to the side as she studies you, and she crosses one of her legs over the other and turns closer to you on the couch. You just nod your assurance. You wrap your fingers around hers a little tighter and you wait for more of her words to follow her smile.

"I kind of thought," she finally says, when her dimples have fully creased her cheeks, "that I should do something special for my eighth assignment. I think I've cracked the whole phone-call code now and I'm ready to move on."

"You are?"

"Yeah, I am." She pulls on your hand now and brings it back to her lap and all you can think about is how nice her lap looks when barely covered by the dress she's wearing. If you stretched out your fingers you would graze her bare thigh and you have to hold yourself really tight to fight the urge to flex a little. She wraps your hand fully between both of hers and then she meets your eyes again. ""So what else do awesome friends do, Britt?"

She's staring straight at you. Maybe into you. And you think all of your deep down thoughts might've just been released in one giant X-rated crescendo and crashed full throttle into the front of your cranium. You're not some newbie when it comes to women and you know the look she's now giving you and you know everything that it implies about what she considers awesome friends are probably able to do.

Her eyes are still fixed tight on you and they're not getting any less persistent in their staring. You attempt a deep breath, you swallow down any suggestion that ends in _hot sex - _especially the ones that begin with _lots and lots of - _and you stay safe. "They, uh… they hold hands," you say, squeezing the fingers that are holding tight to yours.

"Okay, I think we've got that one covered. What else?"

"They get coffee."

You know it's lame, and when she tells you she aced that excursion for her second assignment, you start to run out of options. There's a thousand and one things you could say; you have friends, you have lots of friends and you know a billion different ways to pass the time with them, but this is so different. None of them are _awesome_ friends; not in the way that you and Santana are becoming awesome friends; and your mind is stuck. Rigid. There's just one way you want to pass the time with her right now and your eyes flick to her lips to betray every single scenario that your mind's currently cruising through.

You watch her eyebrow raise and you watch her mouth as it curves into the perfect smirk of recognition.

When she moves you have no idea where she is going.

Or you think you have an idea, but what she does is so far away from what you're expecting that all of your ideas are rendered null and void. You expect she's going to try and kiss you again; you expect that at any minute your doubts are going to be forced to resurface and you're going to have to pull back from her and make awkward excuses…

Her face stops the barest of inches away from yours though and she doesn't move any further.

She's right there. Just, right there. And she's offering herself and she's telling you in one way or another way that you can kiss her. And god do you want to.

You just don't know if you're allowed to.

It doesn't stop your smile from forming, you can't be this close to her and not break out into expressions of happiness, but you don't purse your lips and lean forward to meet her. You do something softer. You touch your nose against hers and you rub just the slightest. Barely back and forth, just the slightest imitation of how Eskimos show love.

When you pull back enough to focus on her face again, she's gazing at you so softly.

"Eskimo kisses," you tell her, and it makes her scrunch her nose.

She repeats your words, as if testing out the validity of them against her tongue, and then she smiles acceptance. "I like it," she says, and she pulls you forward to rub noses again. You can't help the giggle. It's just too many kinds of cute for you too handle and it tickles, her nose against your nose when her lips are so close to your lips.

And so you giggle, and you watch her nose scrunch up again, and your lips lift higher.

"Okay," she says, once she's reclaimed her own space, "awesome friends Eskimo kiss. Anything else?"

You can feel her testing the boundaries of this new kind of friendship that you're forming here on your couch, and you want nothing more than to test them with her. She told you six nights ago under the lights of the gazebo that you were everything she wasn't allowed, and you want to see just what it is she's allowing herself now.

You know she wants to kiss you. And not like an Eskimo would.

And you can't help but wonder at what's changed. Or if nothing has changed and she really has just started to work out her own secret and what that could mean.

In any other situation, on any other couch and with any other girl, you wouldn't even waste these moments thinking it through; you'd have leant across and licked her lips by now, you'd have taken what she was offering and you'd have offered the same back.

Yet this is Santana and nothing is the same. You haven't ever felt this before what you're feeling for her… You've felt boys before and you've felt girls before but you've never felt this sense of absolute adoration you get when you look at Santana. You want to give her everything and you want everything you give her to make her smile always. And you really think you mean the always; like forever and always.

It's a depth of emotion you haven't ever touched upon and you can't believe that it only flows one way; you can't believe you'd be feeling half as much as you're currently feeling if it didn't go in both directions.

And that's why you don't just lean forward and kiss her.

Because you think this might be different for Santana too. The skanky-snack you saw her feasting upon before with no worries of allowance, was a girl the same as you, yet you didn't see anything holding her back then. And if what you suspect has happened before between her and Quinn really has happened, then that only confirms your wandering thoughts.

You've figured out, you think, that Santana allows herself to fuck girls okay.

It's the falling in love with them bit that you think has her worried.

And you think she's falling in love with you too.

"I think," you say, once you've pulled yourself back from getting lost in her eyes, "that if we've mastered the art of Eskimo kissing, we can probably take the next step and kiss like butterflies."

You watch the quizzical smile lift just the right side of her lips and you wonder how it's possible that anyone could not know what butterfly kisses are; "Butterflies kiss?" she asks, and you just shift a little closer.

She doesn't move as you lean in near enough to touch, yet you hear her intake of breath as you flutter your eyelashes softly against the skin of her cheek. You breathe deeply too. Your nose is buried deep in her hair and she smells so delicious that you just pause for a moment. Your lashes no longer flutter, but your stomach is doing all kinds of crazy fluttering somersaults in reaction to her proximity to you.

When you pull back you don't pull back far enough and she's still right there in front of you and she's still looking right into you and her lips are still tempting you.

She says _butterflies are nice, Britt, _and you watch her mouth form each word.

She smirks and you smile. "So…" she says, only it's more of a whisper and it sounds like a dare, "awesome friends can Eskimo kiss and they can butterfly kiss; what other kinds of kisses do you know, BrittBritt?"

The kind that melt.

You don't say that though. You bite your tongue. You think about the kind of kiss you want to give and you shrug your shoulder a little. When she leans forwards with her lips, you soften your smile but you still pull back.

She pouts but her eyes don't lose an ounce of their shine. "What's this?" she asks, her voice wrapping so soft around cute, "awesome friends can't kiss on the lips?"

She's making it so hard to resist her. So, so hard.

You make your next move because you really need to control this moment. You don't think that kissing Santana would be a loss of control, but you think that kissing her without understanding at least some of your newly acquired boundaries would definitely be a loss.

She follows your movement with her eyes when you pull yourself up to your knees, and when you move across and swing one leg over her lap to lightly straddle her, you hear her draw in another deep breath.

You take both of her hands into your hands and you lift her arms until they rest behind her head along the back of the sofa. "I think, maybe," you say, your voice just a whisper and your eyebrow dipping just a little as you try and work it all out, "that awesome friends _can_ kiss, I'm just not sure if they're allowed to…" Your words trail off and her eyes trail away from you, and you apply just the slightest bit of pressure to her hands to bring her gaze back your way.

There's only one question in your mind right now and you have to ask it out loud.

"What do you want Santana?" you say, because you're sure she wants the same as you do, and even if she swears she's not allowed it, the very fact that she wants it, that she could admit to wanting you, would be enough to have you moving on in the moment.

You want to kiss her so bad.

Yet she's lifting her hands out from under yours and she's shifting to sit forward like she needs to move your weight away from her. "I don't want anything," she says hurriedly, as if she's not so sure she wants it now that you've asked her to name it. "I just came to congratulate you, it's no big deal, okay?"

Yet it is a big deal and she needs to know that.

You pull yourself up and back a bit so that your weight isn't resting on her legs, but you do regain a firm hold of her hands and you bring them up to where you held them before. "Santana," you say, yet her eyes don't meet yours and when she tries to lift her hands away again you just hold tighter. "Will you just listen to me, please?"

Her gaze flits to yours and then around you to the door, and you say her name again.

"I have to go," she answers.

"No you don't."

"Brittany…"

Her eyes do come back to yours when she says your name, and you squeeze your grip on her hands again. Her shoulders slump a little and you hear as she sighs. "I really do need to go," she says, but you still insist that she doesn't; not yet.

And here you are again. Holding everything you want in your hands and not knowing quite what to do with it. You know that she wants you, everything she's done since you've met her speaks to you about how much she wants you, yet this whole question of _allowance_ is killing you. You don't understand why she won't allow herself to want you, or why she can only let herself want you when she frames it within the words of _awesome friends._

Her eyes are still guarded as she looks at you, but you can't help but soften your own as you rest your weight down once again. You bring one of her hands from the sofa to press gentle against your lips and you place the softest of kisses there. "I really want to kiss you," you tell her, your voice sliding low. "I think about kissing you all of the time. I'm distracted at work…" You bring her other hand down now and press a kiss to her fingertips, and your smile lifts hopeful as you watch the defensive stance slip from her eyes as she listens to you. "…I'm even distracted at home. Lord Tubbington's totally stopped talking to me again because I keep on forgetting to feed him on time…"

She looks to your eyes and she looks so helpless and you look to her lips and you _know _that you're helpless. Awesome friends are allowed to kiss. They _have_ to be.

They have to be because you're daring to lean forward and touch your lips against hers. You're daring to listen to all of your hopes and none of your doubts and you're daring her to kiss you back; to swallow down the words about not wanting anything, about no big deals and those issues of allowance, and just kiss you back.

And she does. Of course she does, because you're sure beyond any words that she wants this just as much as you do and that she feels just what you're feeling when her lips yield beneath yours and her tongue slides against your tongue and her hands lift to push off your hat and tangle in your hair and she pulls you even closer against her. Your own hands you brace against the back of the sofa and you hold tight with all of your might so as you don't just smash right into her.

You keep the kiss gentle and when she pulls you in even tighter and sucks your bottom lip between hers and nips down gently with the softest graze of her teeth, you pull yourself back. You use the brace of the sofa beneath your hands and you wrench yourself back.

You say _Santana _and she's smiling at you. Her eyes are soft and so into you and she leans up to catch your lips again in another softly placed kiss. She's everything you don't want to resist right now and your hands are ahead of all of the places your mind is fighting to keep away from.

She breathes out _Brittany _when your fingers slide down the skin of her arms, and when you glide across the fabric of her dress and tease the curve of her breasts, you feel her shudder beneath your touch. You just want her. You want all of her and everything, and the way her hips rise to meet your downward pressure only convinces you she wants the same.

Yet you know. You know what you want still isn't a quick fuck at the end of the perfect evening, or that chase into oblivion only obtained at high speed; and so you still your fingers before they slide any further towards that place of taking and you lift your hips again.

You don't stop kissing her though. Not yet.

Awesome friends are allowed to kiss and now you don't want to stop.

You lean forward again and you kiss her top lip, you kiss her bottom lip, you rest for a long moment with your mouth just pressed against hers. You bring your hands up to her face before you fully break the kiss and you steady and hold her where you need her to be. You want her eyes on you when you lean yourself back and she doesn't disappoint you.

And she's still smiling. And she says her bashful _hey. _

And you are smitten.

You can feel the heat racing across your cheeks and you're not even sure what you're blushing for. You lean forward and place another kiss to her lips, just to hide your shyness, and you feel her still smiling against you.

"Hi," you say this time when you pull back, and now she looks at you as if she's been overcome by something which makes her squirm beneath your gaze. You ask _what _and she shakes her head. She leans forward and steals your lips again before collapsing her weight back against the sofa.

When the curve of her lip turns from a smile into a smirk and then into something smug, you prepare yourself for whatever she's going to say next. You smile in waiting.

"I think," she says, her tongue peeking out to moisten her lips, "that I'm definitely getting an A on this assignment."

If she didn't look so adorable saying it, then you'd probably seek to tease her, but she does look adorable and you'd give her an A for everything. "Best assignment ever," you tell her and she beams another smile at you.

"Best-awesome-friend ever." She lifts her eyebrows as she says it and again her eyes flick down to caress your lips.

And you can't help but tease her just a little.

"You are still in training," you say, and you lift your own eyebrows up and down to let her know how serious you're being. "I think the eighth assignment might need a lot of going over; there were a couple of things I was unsure of and I don't want you to miss out on a final grade because…"

Her stare stops you and her lips silence you and again you kiss. It's a quiet kiss and you think she only took it just because she could and the thought has you smiling. "I think we can run repeats on that assignment whenever you want," she says, and although she's trying to push that smug grin back into place on her face, you see the way her eyes dip with the words, you hear the sound of her own uncertainty coming to the fore and you refuse to allow that.

You don't know quite what you've done here or quite how the borders and boundaries have changed to permit here in this minute what was not permissible in minutes previous, but you do know you're not prepared to change backwards.

You lean forward yet again, but this time you don't hush her lips with a kiss, you rub your nose gentle against hers again and you say it the way the Eskimos say it. And she relaxes, and she looks at you, and you rest your weight back down to sit against her thighs. "I'm probably going to want to run the assignment lots," you assure her, "because by time we move on to assignment number nine…" You let your words linger and you let your eyes linger and you let the weight of everything you want rest solid against her.

She doesn't look spooked by your words. She doesn't shift awkwardly beneath you at the insinuation of something more to come. She dips her eyebrow and just considers you softly; "How do you do that, Britt?" she asks, her voice curious.

"Do what?"

"Make everything hard seem somehow so easy?"

On the list of sweet things she's said to you, you're not sure where that should come.

She's taken your hands in hers again, and it makes it hard to shrug away her words and disperse the sense of depth she's given you.

You just…

You just _need_ to kiss her. And she must need it too, because when you lean down towards her, she's already leaning up and when your lips touch hers, you hear the whimper that sounds out from somewhere inside her. And you think you whimper too when she pulls away, and when her eyes flick to the side and her gaze drops down, you know you want to do more than whimper. Because this is a perfect moment; _perfect_. And the only reason you can think of that she would find anything like sorrow buried within your kiss, is if she was thinking it was getting close to a kiss goodbye.

You had forgotten she wasn't yours to keep.

She makes it so easy to forget everything when you're with her and you don't want to be without her. It has you pouting before she's even announced her thoughts, and her eyebrows dip when she looks at you, but you can't change your expression.

"Britt," she says, and you hold her hands a little tighter. "You know I have to get back," she says, and sure, she does, you know that, and it's great how she read your mind and picked out your thoughts… but still. When she leans her lips forward to urge away your pout, you just turn your head to the side and play a moment with petulant.

"Brittany," she sings out, calling your attention back her way, but you really don't want to listen to her words and you're sure that your face is making her well aware of that fact. "I really do have to leave," she implores, "Quinn's really going to lose it if she notices me gone, and I'm already pushing it hard as it is."

You squeeze her fingers a little between yours and you sigh out your reasoning, "But I don't want you to go."

"Believe me Britt, there's nothing I'd like more than to stay here with you, but…"

"I know; Quinn."

You can't help but drop your eyes as you speak and when you lift them again she's looking back at you quizzically. She opens her mouth as if to say something, but no words come out. She looks away from you, she looks back. "I'd rather stay here," she says, and this time you do shrug. You take your hands from hers and you go to lift yourself up from your place on her lap. If you're going to have to say goodbye to her, you guess it might just be best to rip off the band-aid and accept the situation as it is.

Her hands fall to your thighs though and you don't move further.

You're up on your knees, her fingers are digging into you, and the look she fixes you with could hold you in place forever. It's halfway pleading and halfway needing, and you honestly wouldn't know how to resist it if you wanted to. "Quinn's not an awesome friend," she sounds out quietly, and you only hope she's telling you what you think she's telling you.

"She's not?"

"She's really not. Look," she says, and again her eyes drift away before returning. "It's just, it's really messed up, or it's complicated. But it's not… _we're_ not…"

"You're not?"

"We're not awesome friends."

She leans forward and kisses you quickly this time and it's not as soft as all of her other kisses and it doesn't remove the question from your lips. "Brittany," she says, but you don't know what to tell her.

You want more but you're scared of the answers.

You want Santana; all of Santana. You don't like the thought of sharing her with Quinn. In fact, each minute you spend with Santana and each new bridge you cross together, makes you less and less inclined to want to share with anyone.

When her nose nudges yours and she asks you to listen, you try your hardest to set aside your thoughts of doubt and focus on her words. "I want…" she says, and you instantly focus. Even when her eyes drift before coming back to you, you keep your focus. "I _want_ to be your awesome friend, okay? I don't want…" She sighs and you wait and you know she'll offer you more. "…No one else is like you Brittany, _no-one."_

She ends there and so do you.

Because for now, it's enough.

It's not everything you want; that's still sat beneath you on your sofa being incredible. But tonight you've found a way between you to make something more than what you had before, and even if you do have to send her back to Quinn now, even if you are guaranteed to spend the rest of your night wondering whether your kisses still remain upon her lips or if she's wiped them away with the lips of another, that something more is a whole lot closer to what you want than where you were just a few hours ago, and for now that's enough.

You drop your pout as you let her words sink into you and soften your eyes with a smile. "That's kind of awesome," you tell her, and when she asks why, you let her know that there's no one quite like her either.

You climb off of her with a sigh which you exaggerate to make amusing, and you reach out to offer her a hand back to her feet. You can't help but pull her into you once she's standing, and you love the way that her heels lift her that few extra inches closer to equal height; your arms still go around her the highest when you hug, but when you lean back your head her lips are right there and you chance once more to seal everything with a kiss.

She meets you in the middle and you feel her lips smile against yours.

"I have to go," she says, but this time she's smiling and it's not so much goodbye.

"I still want you to stay."

"Britt…" She draws out your name and you scrunch up your nose in reply.

"What? I do," you say, and you loosen your hug to shrug your shoulder. "Awesome friends have awesome sleepovers. It's assignment eight-and-a-half."

"There's half-assignments now?"

"Sure. It's where all your extra credits are gonna come from."

She takes a moment before she speaks again, and her smile does find its way back to smug before she replies, "We already had a sleepover though, Britt; I get a grade for that, right?"

"That was before we started counting, Santana."

Now she pouts and you take your turn to kiss it away. Just one soft kiss; just one more smile.

When she pulls back out of your arms you don't drop your lips down, because she has that look of awe on her face again, the one you first caught up on that hill, and you don't want to disturb it. She finds your hands and she holds them both in hers. "I really do have to go," she says, her eyes rolling away dramatically, "and Quinn really will be a bitch if she notices me gone. But…" she lifts a hand to her lips and kisses you that way, "…You were awesome tonight, Brittany. The show, everything, you were amazing."

You don't want her to leave.

Yet you thank her for coming, you thank her for the flowers and the champagne, and you let her leave with one last kiss stolen quick from her lips and one last kiss stolen longer from yours.

And then you sigh.

You get that she had to go back to Quinn's; you really do. Yet…

You also still really don't.

…


	10. Destined To Dream

The morning after the night before, you awaken full of the joy of newfound things. Sleep hadn't been hard for you to find, and as much as you were sure that your doubts would plague you out of any kind of rest, it was the opposite of doubt that had swept you up and carried you far off into the land of dreaming. And your dreams had been sweet and your dreams had been sensual and your smile when you awoke reflected both of those things.

You kissed Santana.

Again. And not only did you kiss her but you kissed her in ways which promised the so much more to come. You weren't expecting to kiss her; sure, you've thought an awful lot in the time since the gazebo what it would be like to touch lips again, and you've flirted oh so close to that feeling each time you've been with her. But last night was a surprise, and before she arrived you hadn't expected her, let alone expected the gifts she would bring.

You're still blown away that she made it to you. Not once during any of your phone-calls had she even insinuated that she would try and make a break for freedom to come and see you; yet she had. And she did. And you don't think you're ever really going to stop smiling.

If this is what falling in love feels like, then you want to fall forever.

You've only ever heard tales of love before. You see it in Sam and Mercedes and in Tina and Mike, you grew up listening to the loving words of your mom and your step-dad, but you've never felt the words paint your own soul before. Everything has always been fun; the trading of loving words has never been more than an accompaniment to the trading of loving touches, and all of the loving touches have been about… Well, they've been about fun.

Like adventures; really awesome naked adventures.

With Santana, everything feels like an adventure.

Just one look takes you to a world brand new, and the fun you're finding is in her dimple creases and the dip of her brow, or the way her lips curve so bashful when she speaks your name through a smile.

With Santana, this feels like love.

And you have never felt something so special.

All through the morning you've bounced about with a smile, and even when Quinn had text you to move your lunch meeting back until dinner, you hadn't let the inconvenience dampen you down. You used the spare time to dance your way through your feelings, and now, sat in the restaurant and awaiting Quinn's arrival, you feel ready to face whatever it is she wishes to talk about.

You're pretty curious. You assume this is in some way going to be about Santana, yet you're not sure, and even if it is, you're still curious as to how she's going to broach the subject. You've seen Quinn do warm and friendly and you've seen her when her tone tips the temperature close to freezing, and you're wondering which one you'll be dining with today; which angle she'll aim for when she seeks out your secrets.

When she finally arrives, she looks the least composed you've ever seen her. You're seated outside at a table on the patio of a nice Italian restaurant, and the setting is light and airy, yet she's wearing dark sunglasses when the maitre d' leads her to your table and she hasn't removed them yet. She's slumped in her chair, her hair is scraped back from her face in a tight ponytail, and her voice sounds like she spent the day soaking it in gravel. You've only really exchanged pleasantries so far, and you're beginning to wonder if there's much point to this meeting beyond your need to fill your stomach.

You imagine she celebrated more than heartily last night. You don't allow yourself to imagine anymore than that, you just sit and wait.

When the waiter brings your water and takes your order of the chef's special lasagne with a side-salad, you're actually surprised to hear Quinn speak, yet she does and she asks if she can just have the same as you. She watches him leave and then she fixes her shielded gaze on you.

Her face is neutral and her eyes are hidden, yet she hoists her tone a little closer to human when she manages to fashion some words. "I'm sorry Brittany," she says, leaning forward to claim her glass of water, "I'm not normally so fragile when it comes to the morning after, but last night's party was still going this morning, and I've barely managed any sleep at all."

"You enjoyed the show then?" you ask, and you're happy to see her face attempt something like a smile.

"It was an excellent show. Everyone and their friend wanted to know me last night and that's all because of you. I really didn't realise," she says, "even with the crowd on campus the other day, that you're quite as well known as you are." You shrug your shoulders because it's no big deal, yet she hasn't finished. "I feel like you're my very own superstar best friend."

You don't mean to drop your brow in query, yet your face moves on instinct and you know that you're questioning her words. _Friend_ is a moniker you've both bandied around, yet you don't feel as if you've really gotten there yet; there's an energy about her you can't quite describe, and most times you're with her, you focus on the job and just hope to keep her smiling.

Hearing her say _best friend_ feels like an overreach.

"I know I'm not the easiest," she tells you, when you don't say anything in reply, "but I really do appreciate everything you're doing for me Brittany. Without you I'm sure Rachel would already be wearing the winner's rosette, and I don't think I could stomach that today."

Her smile becomes a grimace and you guess you really should speak.

"No worries," you assure her, your hand waving away her thanks, "we've got loads of great stuff coming up and I know you're going to be awesome in all of it. You don't need to worry about Rachel; Sam and I aren't."

You really aren't. The side of the show which highlighted Rachel was just as loud and brash and energetic as you imagined, yet the vague sense of displeasure you had encountered in her presence is something that transcends to the big screen. She's just so… loud. And so damn enthusiastic. When you think about it objectively, you're really not even sure that Quinn is so much the underdog anymore. If it was a blow by blow fight based on the political policies of their father's campaign, then Rachel would be a shoo in with the MTV audience, you're sure. Yet it's not, and as much as possible you're going to make Quinn seem politic-light.

The idea is to rock the vote and get the people out there at the ballot box, it doesn't matter who they vote for come polling day, it just matters that they vote at all and get involved in the process. And it matters that they fall in love with Quinn and cast their approval in her direction when the final show airs.

As you talk Quinn through the various appointments you've set up for the week ahead, she seems to become more animated, and by the time your food arrives, she actually manages to remove the dark glasses that are shielding her face.

Her eyes are red and puffy and you can see why she was hiding them.

"That all sounds great," she assures you, and even though she doesn't look great, you can hear that she means it. "Also," she says when you're about to dig into your food, "my father has a gala up in Fairfield next weekend, which I'll be speaking at; there won't be much of use for the show I imagine, but I've heard Rachel is taking her team to New York, so perhaps it'll be good to get out on the road too?"

You're not sure how Fairfield compares with New York, but it's not a terrible idea. You are supposedly on the campaign trail stirring up interest, and if nothing else you can probably arrange some sort of spontaneous event that will draw a crowd and create something worth filming. That's not what interests you though. You think perhaps the hangover has loosened Quinn's tongue a little, because she's never been one to just offer up information on Rachel before.

You take a moment as if you're formulating the question slowly and it hadn't appeared immediate in your mind. "Rachel's going to New York?" you ask, "Mike and Tina haven't mentioned anything about that yet; how did you hear?"

She pauses, her fork in midair, and her lip curves just the slightest at the side. "There's ways of knowing everything in this town," she says, "You just have to know the right people to ask."

When you enquire further she ignores you in favour of eating her food, and you take the silence as her way of telling you she won't share her source. It's not a big deal; it really was just a passing curiosity, and you're happy to let it blow on by. You do stay on the topic of Rachel for the moment though, and you ask Quinn, once she's laid her fork back down, if she'd seen Rachel's portion of the show. You're interested to know her opinion, and when she smiles the largest smile you've seen so far this evening, you guess that she did.

"Wasn't it just so terribly…" When she fades out you offer the word _loud_ but she waves it easily away with her hand. "It was just so everything _Rachel_. As soon as I heard her voice it was like being right back in high school."

It doesn't look as though that's such a terrible notion for her to contemplate so you push to look for more. "Has the rivalry always been so bad between you?" you ask, and the question tilts her head to side as she takes a moment to consider it.

"Mostly. There was one brief period where I entertained the possibility of something other than enemies, but it was short-lived. She took something of mine, Brittany, and that's not anything I ever take lightly."

Her eyes are pointed as she speaks and her smile has disappeared in favour of a small scowl. It seems as though the scowl is directed at you though, rather than the story she's telling, and for a moment it throws you off course. "Okay," you say, drawing out the sound as you rearrange your thoughts. "If she took something of yours, why don't you just take it back?"

She doesn't speak at first and her eyes don't look away from you. You don't know where the weight has come from, what it is she's trying to tell you with her complete lack of words, but you're sure there's a silent message in there somewhere. "That's the thing though, Brittany," she eventually offers, her face fixing back into something like a smile, "I don't want him anymore. I haven't wanted him for a long time."

The name Finn Hudson flits through your mind and you fix it into place as the name of Rachel's boyfriend. You want to ask, to confirm your assumption, but she's already speaking again and you lean forward in your chair to listen.

"Sometimes I think it's revenge enough that she's still with him now, but then I remember her face when she was crowned prom queen to his king, and I don't think anything will ever quite be enough."

She stops speaking when the waiter comes to collect your plates, and you use the time to slide the new information correctly into place. Nothing is really a surprise, you knew from Rachel's own mouth that they fought over a boy throughout school, yet, you maybe thought there would be a little more to it than that.

"Anyway," she says, when you're left alone at the table again, "let's not let Rachel ruin our evening. Tell me what _you_ thought of the show last night - didn't you say you were having a viewing party of your own?"

"Sure," you offer, smiling widely and stalling for time. Not that you need time so much, you just need to not think so completely about Santana when you think about last night. "Sam and his girlfriend Mercedes came over and we all watched together; the show was excellent and you're pretty much neck-and-neck with the online poll," you say, and your words make her smile.

"Yes, I saw that. I believe the website called it the _Brittany Effect_?"

You drop your eyes and you feel the flush. It's one thing being told by Holly or Mercedes or even Santana that the kudos should all come your way for making Quinn popular, but hearing Quinn herself insinuate the same is a little uncomfortable. "That's just crazy speak," you tell her, rolling your eyes and shaking your head, "you were great Quinn, really; you deserve to be doing as well as you are."

She accepts your words without refuting them and when she asks if you're having dessert, you tell her no, you're meeting Mercedes and some of her friends at an ice cream bar a little later, and you're saving your sweet tooth for them.

You think perhaps that's it, that your concerns about the things Quinn may wish to talk about were misguided and that she really did see this as just a get together after the show to talk about ideas and opinions. She's small talking now as she sips at the coffee she ordered, and you're relaxing back into answering easy queries and the nothing too taxing.

When she pauses from her pleasantries and fixes her still strained eyes on you with her coffee cup resting close to her lips, you don't immediately notice the weight in her stare. It's only when she says, _So, Thursday… _and her tone sounds so methodically measured and crisp, that you realise your concerns weren't wrong at all. You wait for her words and you compose your easy answer. "…You and Santana," she says, still smiling tightly as she lowers her cup, "what was that all about?"

You play it simple and act confused at first. "Me and Santana?" you say, and you try hard not to smile at how that tastes in your mouth, "It was nothing at all. She was asking about the show and-"

She holds up her hand to interrupt you and your eyebrow lifts as you pause. "Brittany, I'm not stupid," she informs you, "I know Santana, and I know how she operates."

"What does that mean?"

You really do want to know. Yet you have to wait, because she sips at her coffee again and she takes her time to run her gaze over you slowly, as if contemplating your entirety and judging your… You're not sure. Maybe she's measuring your worth, maybe she's measuring up any threat you might pose… You really don't know. You still don't have a read on her, and when she speaks again, her voice has dropped so close to soft and warm that you wonder if perhaps the waiter slipped something into the coffee. "I like you Brittany," she says, "You seem like a really nice girl, and…"

"I'm twenty-one, Quinn, not twelve."

You have to say it. You hate when people mistake your easy nature for naivety. It makes her lift her brow and raise the corner of her lips, but her tone doesn't change from the warmth of before. "I didn't mean that," she clarifies, putting her coffee cup back in its saucer and pushing both away from her. "I mean you seem less jaded than the normal types who pass through our backyard. I don't want Santana to take advantage of that… She has a certain way with easy pickings. It's never very pleasant."

Her words aren't very pleasant.

"That's really, uh, _nice_ of you to be concerned, Quinn," you say, letting sugary sweetness cover the incivility you wish to slide into your tone. "I'm not easy pickings though, and seeing as Santana's been nothing but friendly to me, I really don't think you need to worry."

"That's the point though; Santana doesn't do friends…" She shrugs her shoulder lightly and offers and apologetic smile as if that can somehow soothe the intent of her words, "…She only has two types; she has the friends she fucks and she has the friends she fucks over; I don't want to see you become either."

You want to ask Quinn exactly what kind of friend she is.

You don't though.

You spread more sugar across your face as you smile, and you shake your head at all of Quinn's words. "I won't be either," you say, you just don't tell her the reasons why you believe that. You insist her again that really, Santana is just someone who's polite when she sees you and who makes conversation when you share the same space. "You really don't have to worry about me," you insist, and you lift your lips to their highest.

She doesn't reply. Not at first. She does that stare thing again which makes you feel a vague sense of discomfort as you wonder at whether she's buying into your words of innocence. When she does speak, the warmth has slipped a little and her voice is closer to the hard-line you're used to hearing her use. She says that she hopes that what you're saying is true, because not only on a professional level would the opposite worry her; "…You're supposed to be here for _me_ Brittany," but also on the level where she thinks of you as friends; "…Santana and I have an awful lot of history. It would make it more than awkward for both of us if you fell for any of her advances."

"There haven't been any advances," you insist yet again. "I hardly even know her."

…

You're left with a bitter taste in your mouth after your dinner with Quinn, and even though you were looking forward to it previously, you no longer feel like going out to meet Mercedes and her friends, and you text her saying you're tired; that you're sorry to let her down but that you'll see her tomorrow at Mike and Tina's. She accepts your words easy enough and you head straight home and into a whole chaotic mishmash of conflicting thoughts and emotions.

You had felt so carefree this afternoon after your time spent dancing, yet now you just feel as though your cares have been given license to run free and you don't like where they're running to. It's not even that you put a whole lot of stock in Quinn's words; her tone was too construed to make you believe her words were borne out of genuine concern for you, but that just leaves you with a different set of questions to pile atop the questions you've already plagued yourself with.

You feel like Quinn was warning you off of Santana, you really do, but…

You keep coming up against the buts. Like unformed sentences that can only make it so far before you short circuit your thoughts and just think of Santana. Quinn didn't say anything about _awesome _friends when she gave you Santana's two types, and you really do feel as though you exist above her warnings. Everything, like, every single thing that Santana has shown to you, insists that Quinn's words are wrong in her assessment of Santana's character.

It's like, if you sat and watched the perfect sunrise and then someone tried to tell you that the sun doesn't exist; that's how much sense you heard in what she said.

But…

There is that time when the sun dips down and you have to wait in darkness for the next sunrise, and then, in those moments, maybe your thoughts darken a little too. Just a little though. Just enough to make you miss ice cream and sit solitary at home.

Quinn wasn't wrong when she said that you're meant to be here for her, and you have work to do, you have emails to write and plans to firm up and now you have Fairfield to check out and more plans to be made. You're also waiting for Santana to call you.

You know that she's going to call. You text her after your dinner, just to say _hey, _and while her answer had been short, she'd told you she would try and call you later. It occupies the part of your mind that wanders even while you're working, and half of your gaze keeps flicking to the clock and to your phone as it counts out the minutes of anticipation.

When your phone eventually does ring, it's late. Not so late that you've given up waiting, but late enough that you've closed down your laptop and relaxed into quiet time with Lord Tubbington. You've told him all of your concerns and all of your worries, but he doesn't have any answers. You suspect that he has an opinion of Santana; you know they spent some time together the morning after she stayed here, but so far he hasn't given anything away. He's still barely speaking to you in protest at your constant distraction and disregard for his schedule, and even when you spent a solid fifteen minutes scratching at that same spot under his chin that he loves best of all, he still hadn't offered even one hint of a meow of satisfaction or dismay when you asked his opinion on Santana.

When you pick up your phone he plods down from the couch and you stretch out to fill the warmed up space that he's left you. You say a quiet _hello, _you wait and you listen to the silence before she eventually says your name.

"_I'm sorry it's so late,"_ she offers, but you let her know you're not in bed yet. _"Still, I wanted to call you earlier; it feels like ages since I've seen you."_

Her words make you smile, but it's not the same smile she normally brings out in you. It does seem like a really long time since you saw her or spoke to her, and in the time between, you've had to listen to Quinn's words and have all of your smiles spliced with the sour.

It makes it hard to bounce off of her the way you normally do and you can't help the subdued when you agree at the time lapse. You can't help but sigh a little.

When she says your name again, you hear the hint of concern; _"Is something wrong?"_ she asks, and at first you just shake your head _no. _

"_Britt?"_

"I'm okay," you say, when you figure out that she can't see your reactions. "I'm just tired from work. I had dinner with Quinn tonight, so…"

You didn't even really mean to bring it up, yet it is prominent in your thoughts.

"_Quinn?" _she questions. _"She never mentioned that to me."_

"It was a late arrangement, we were meant to go for lunch, but…"

This time she says that maybe she remembers something about lunch being mentioned, then she laughs and makes comment about the state of Quinn this morning, _"I'm not surprised she postponed, she was still doing body shots at breakfast."_

You say nothing. You shrug silently to the emptiness of your room.

She asks you again if you're okay and again you don't answer.

"_Did Quinn upset you again Britt, because I swear if she's fucking with you I'll-"_

You stop her and tell her no. You tell her that Quinn's not messing with you. "Honestly, San, I'm just really tired. Quinn was fine, she's just… _Quinn._"

You can't think how else to say it without saying things you really don't want to say. At least not on the phone when you can't see Santana's face and she can't tend to your fears with just the softness of her touch.

The silence on the end of the phone lasts a long while and you wonder at what she's thinking about, and when she does eventually find her words they sound just as subdued as the ones you offered her.

"_I really want to see you," _she says, and everything inside of you aches. _"I can't get out now, but tomorrow, maybe. My dad is away with Russell and my abuela has church things most of the day…" _You wait while you imagine her going through her schedule in her mind and you think of your own plans. You have dance with Mike again in the daytime and you have dinner with the gang at his and Tina's in the evening. "_…I can probably shake free for a couple of hours in the afternoon; are you… Do you, maybe, want to do something?"_

"Maybe," you say, and you hear the nervous hiding behind her short laugh. You tell her you have dance and you tell her what time and she arranges to come and pick you up from Mike's uncle's studio. You don't decide what it is you're going to do after that, because the most you can focus on is that you're going to do something.

It chases the subdued away to a more manageable distance and the smile you hear tracing along the curve of her words now, is enough to bring forth your own. It paves the way for soft words to fall from your lips when you talk about sleeping, and when she tells you not to worry about Quinn, you almost do as she says. _"I know she can be an idiot Britt, but really, whatever she said, don't take it to heart. She just…"_

"She's Quinn."

"_Exactly."_

It's enough, again, for now.

Because you don't want to take Quinn's words anywhere close to your heart. Not when your heart is still so intent on all things Santana.

…

When you dance, the world becomes a different place. The space changes and the landscape shifts and all you can see, all you can focus upon, is how to mould your body to the next beat inside of the music and how to take the feeling that's flowing through you and express it in a place that exists outside of you. You imagine it's how the scribing of words feels for a poet or how the build-up of brushstrokes feels for a painter; it's like… when you're doing it, it's _everything._

You've danced hard again today. Yesterday it was the joy of too many kisses to count which had driven your limbs through their array of exertion, yet today that's different. You still have the joy - maybe more joy - yet behind the joy you have the bitter taste of Quinn words hovering in mind, and it's them which pushes your feet to step just that little harder and your body to pop just that little bit tighter. You don't want the tone of things said yesterday to taint the time you have with Santana today, and so you dance.

You dance with Mike as you brainstorm choreography ideas for his Uncle's Christmas show, and when he leaves with Tina and with words about seeing you for dinner, you dance a whole lot more. You move from the main studio when the late Sunday lunch class starts, and when Santana arrives, when Mike's cousin shows her through to the back room and you catch sight of her in the mirror which runs the length of the wall, you still dance.

You let her watch you. You let her gaze tease your feet into that one step more, and you trace each of the beats until the music comes to a stop.

You're out of breath, you feel like a mess of sweat and bone deep exhaustion, yet when she smiles and applauds your performance, you feel nothing but the pep in your step as you walk slowly towards her. You don't touch her; you really are a hot mess of everything not quite enticing, but you smile the smile your face has somehow crafted just for her. You feel your cheeks flush beyond the heat of your workout and you feel that flutter of something shy skip your heartbeat when her gaze slides deep inside of your own.

"You made it," you say, but she's still just staring her smile into your eyes.

"Is there anything you're not amazing at?" she asks you when her mouth finally forms words, but the words are ones which make you dip your head to your chest. "Seriously," she carries on, "your lines are incredible, and you hit point on every beat. Even the half beats."

They're words which make you lift your head. Because this isn't the gushing praise of someone who lives in a land of bias; she's talking to you as if she knows what she's talking about, as if she understands something about the art of performance.

It intrigues you. It carves curiosity into the arch of your brow.

"You know about dance?" you ask, and it seems as though your words now cause her head to drop a little as she glances down to the floor.

"No, not like, really," she says, her shoulder shrugging. "I just, with the music. I know how the timing can be a bitch to nail down."

She doesn't say more and you don't ask right now. She tells you she has a couple of hours free and you tell her you need to clean up quick. There's a place out back where you can catch a quick shower and change into clean clothes, and it's there that you lead Santana now. You still haven't touched her; you're still hanging in that place that just wants to reach out and claim back the sensation of her skin against yours, but there's something which stops you. Something which clings to the anticipation within a moment, something that sees the way her eyes are following you and only wants to prolong the chase…

Just for a moment. Just because you know that when she catches you it's going to feel so good.

You can't help the look you give her when you sit her down by your locker and tell her you'll just be a minute, you can't help the seductive shimmy in your hips when you lead her eyes back to the cubicles at the far end of the room, and even if you could help it you probably wouldn't. Her eyes are the perfect salve to all of Quinn's wayward warnings and her eyes are all over you. Even once you're inside the shower and the water is running hot down the curves of your body, you can still feel the weight of her stare pressing against you.

It makes your shower short. It makes your grab for clothes super quick.

Your hair you pull up into a tight bun at the back of your head and the cut offs and casual t-shirt that you dress in are a perfect fit for how easy you're feeling.

When you step back into the space where Santana sits, her eyes are lost somewhere far away and for a moment you get to admire her unnoticed. She's dressed the opposite to you in terms of what you call comfort, and your guess is that she's attended church with her abuela before she came here to see you. Her skirt is knee length and tight to her thighs, and her shoes have the smallest heel you've ever seen her wear. Your favourite is her shirt though; it's so prim and proper with its button up collar, yet the whole outfit is subverted by the short black leather jacket which sits across her shoulders suggesting something entirely different to the obvious moniker of _good girl_.

She looks kind of perfect to you and you smile your way through the _hey _that seeks to disturb her silence.

You watch her gaze as it drifts down to your sneakers and your lips only lift higher as it rises up again and her eyes rest gentle on your face. "That was quick," she says, lifting herself up from the bench and walking to your side. "Do you know what you want to do now? Are you hungry?"

You're starving and you tell her so and she asks you next where you want to eat. You think for all of a second before you tell her you want to go to the beach; "Do you know Pink's Hotdogs? We could get take out and…"

She smiles at your words and she tells you she does know Pink's, everyone knows Pink's, and you're glad for your moment of inspiration. You hate being cooped up after the freedom of dancing, and the expanse of the beach with one of the _best _hotdogs in Los Angeles sounds pretty close to perfection right now. Add in Santana by your side and you're sure the thought surpasses perfection.

…

You wait in the car while she buys the food and when she returns you hold the bag while she drives just a little further down the coast and parks up near one of the quieter stretches of beach. It's only barely touching on late afternoon and the sun is still sitting high in the sky, yet when you exit the car and feel the caress of the sea breeze along your bare bits of skin, you can't help but shiver lightly. You use the hand not holding the bag to rub at your arms, and for a moment you wish that maybe you'd dried off your hair before leaving the dance studio.

You wanted to come to the beach though and you're at the beach, with Santana, and you refuse to let a little wind chill dampen down your spirits. You can tough it out. You have a hotdog to snack on and you're pretty sure that'll be enough to warm you up.

You don't notice Santana's eyes on you as you contemplate the chill, and it's only when she calls your name across the top of the car that you look her way. "Are you cold?" she asks, with the tiniest pout of concern pushing out her lips. You tell her that you're okay, _really_, but she's already reopening the driver's side door to the car and leaning across to the back shelf. When she stands back up she's holding the UCLA hooded sweater you recognise from your coffee trip the other evening and you expect that she's going to toss it to you across the roof, yet she doesn't. She walks slowly around the front of the car until she's standing just a touch away from you, and then she pauses.

You still haven't touched yet. Not once.

You've measured the distance between almost touches and you've counted the times your hands have grazed the spaces just before a touch; yet you haven't connected. It's like all of your intimacy from Friday night has cocooned you inside of a bubble that's holding you in stasis. Because you know you can touch… you suspect you can lean across and kiss her also and it wouldn't be a problem, but there's something about this bubble. Something about this slow expectation that has you forgetting the shivers across your skin even before she reaches your side.

She's smiling at you the closer she gets and you pull your bottom lip between your teeth rather than grin at her with the full force of what you're feeling inside. She's just so… _wow. _Like if wow was a quality then you're sure she'd encompass every single aspect of it.

You wait for her to hand you the sweater when she steps to your side, but she doesn't. She takes the bag with the food in from your hand and she places it gently on the hood of her car. She shakes out the sweater until she's holding it how she wants it, and then she catches you within her perfect stare. The one where her eyes delve inside you and wonder what you ever did before you knew the warmth hidden inside of her gaze.

"Is this okay?" she asks, and you nod yes to everything.

You bend just a little, just to even up the last couple of inches between you, and you let her slide the sweater down over your head. You push your hands through the arm holes and for a minute you see nothing but darkness, and smell nothing but Santana.

When you straighten up again, she's pulling at the hem and fussing about you, reaching up to un-snag the hood from where it's caught slightly against the bump from your tight bun and smoothing the material out, down across your arms. Her eyes are all business and dedicated to her task, and you can't help but take a hold of her hands when she reaches to fuss at your cuffs and make sure everything fits right.

Her skin is so warm and she pauses herself before she catches your eye, and when she does, she looks so incredibly _pleased_ with herself. As if she'd just dressed you up in a princess costume and now she's admiring her handiwork.

She says a quiet _hey, _and you can see the redness hiding just behind the skin of her cheeks. And she's perfect, and she's bashful and you have to kiss her.

Just…

A tiny kiss. A _hey you _kiss. A kiss so quick that it only lasts just long enough to take the smile she was already wearing and lift it so much higher. Next you say your _hey_ with words and you feel the pink paint your own cheeks bright with the way she's making you feel.

"Are you warmer now?" she asks, as if it's the most important question in the world, and you feel your nose scrunch a little in shyness as you drop your eyes and nod your head.

"Thank you, I should've thought to grab a jersey, but…"

Her lips nip forward and silence you and your nose scrunches just a little bit more. "It's all good," she says when she pulls back, "it looks kind of cute on you anyway."

"It does?"

She lets go off your hands and lifts one of hers to tug lightly on the front of the sweater, somewhere between the U and the C, and now she nods and drops her eyes away from yours, "Really cute."

Yet you can't see past her own really cute.

She picks up the bag and you fall into step by her side, and even though what you really want to do is reach across and walk with her hand in hand, you don't know if that's the kind of thing awesome friends do at the beach, and so you settle for wrapping your arms around yourself and feeling the hug of her sweater instead. It really is so comfortable. It's all soft on the inside and warm and cosy and the frayed edges along the cuffs make it feel like a hug from an old and dear friend rather than from a piece of random clothing you've simply thrown on just to keep the breeze at bay.

When she holds out your food to you, there's a part of you that wants to forgo the eating and remain within your sweater encased cocoon, but you reach out when she does and you take your hotdog. It's kind of messy, you have to lean forward as you take bites so as not to spill anything down your front, but it is just as fun as you thought it would be.

Pink's really do make one hell of a hotdog, and the beach is up there amongst your favourite places, and Santana is without a doubt your new favourite person.

You walk in silence as you eat, and when you finish she takes your napkin and places the rubbish back into the bag and tosses it in one of the trash cans lining the beach. It's a moment where her hands are now free and your hands are free and again you want to reach out and take one and again you don't.

"Do you want to walk more?" she asks, her fingers holding onto each other instead of you, and you smile and you say _sure_ and you fall into step again at her side. You fold your arms again to keep from just grabbing her, and it makes you smile when you see her cross her own arms up and over her chest.

When she stops, you stop, and when she leads you up to a secluded place near a stretch of rocks, you're happy to follow her. It's not private, not by a long shot, but it's quiet enough to pretend at privacy and when you both sit in the sand and face each other, everything else fades far into the distance.

You cross your legs, but her skirt means she sits and stretches her legs out in front of her, and you react without measuring your touches. You pull at the shoes on her feet, like a Cinderella story in reverse, and when she gives them up without protest, you lay them by your side and take a hold of her toes. You know she's not ticklish there, she told you that already, so when she flinches you raise your brow in question.

"Your hands are cold, Britt" she says, and so you wrap them inside the cuffs of her sweater and you enclose her feet again. She doesn't move this time and the smile she gives you is the kind worth treasuring.

She just… When she looks at you, the _way_ she looks at you; you feel yourself like you're being treasured.

You can feel your nose scrunching up again under the adoration in her gaze and you have to break the stare. You rub a little at her feet and you look of out towards the expanse of the horizon. In the distance you can see a couple of boats and it's those you focus on for just a moment until you can gather yourself back together again.

When you look back she's still looking and her smile hasn't dipped at all.

You think it may have grown.

You ask why she's smiling so big and she rolls her eyes away from you. "I'm just… happy, okay?" she says when she rolls her eyes back, and you know you can accept that.

"I'm happy too," you tell her, squeezing at her feet again. "I missed you, you know?"

"You did?"

"Of course I did."

She leans her head forward now, and her hair falls about her face in soft waves which obscure your vision. "I'm still sorry I had to leave Friday night," she says, in the direction of her skirt, "I really wanted to stay with you. I just…"

You know.

"You can stay next time," you assure her, and she shows you her face again.

"Assignment eight and a half, right?"

"Exactly, San."

You smile. She smiles. She pulls her feet from your lap and shuffles just a little closer so as her words can drop to a whisper, yet your ears can still hear her. You expect her to elaborate on the eight and a half, you expect she's sneaking closer to tease the feeling a little, yet her expression is closer to earnest than that of mischief when she settles, and instead of whispering sweet nothings, she whispers a sweet everything, her fingers grazing the sleeve of her sweater as she tells you again that it looks cute on you.

"It's just a sweater," you say, and she shakes her head.

"It's actually not; it's like…"

You wait for her to say more and you watch her eyes as the flit to that space behind your shoulder and to that someplace faraway. "I know it's no big deal, whatever, but it was my mom's college sweater. It kind of means a lot to me."

And now it means a lot to you. Santana still hasn't spoken about her mom to you, and you haven't pushed her to, yet she looks at you now, she fixes her eyes back on your face and she speaks again. "She went to UCLA, she was a music major; that's actually how she knew Leroy and Hiram, Rachel's dads?"

You just nod in silence. You don't disturb her words. "She was going to be a star, or something, a real big shot on the stage, and then…" when she pauses she looks down into her lap, and you reach across to find her hand "…She used to say it like it was such a great thing - _I fell in love __- _but I don't know. Maybe it would've been better if she hadn't."

She takes her hand back too soon and you frown down your smile.

"Was that when she met your dad?" you ask, and she laughs a little in a way which is more mocking than mirth.

"Yeah. And then came me and then bang went the dream."

It's so sullen the way she says it and you're sure it isn't true. You don't know how to ask that though, and so you ask instead about her own dream; if she shares that same ambition her mom had to be a star up on the stage.

When she laughs this time it's a little on the side of lighter and she shakes her head back and forth when she looks at you, "Hell no," she insists, her hand waving away the suggestion. "If I had a dream, which I don't, I wouldn't waste it up on stage; that's Rachel's thing and I've never wanted to share that spotlight."

You can understand that. As much as you can imagine her holding an audience enrapt with just her presence, you know what it takes to expose yourself up on stage. It's a silent uncovering of all that you are and you know already that Santana doesn't like that kind of attention.

"So, if you did have a dream…" you say, and you smile.

"I don't know. When I was younger I wanted to direct, produce… pretty much anything that meant I got to boss Berry around. I had this idea, it seems crazy now, but back then…"

You listen to all of her words and you can still hear her dreaming. She tells you how when she was real young and Rachel and her would perform their endless ensembles of dances and songs and skits and _everything_, they had it all planned out. They were going to graduate high school and Rachel was going to go to her fancy theatre school in New York and Santana was going to follow her out there and combine college with an apprenticeship at the New York branch of Leroy and Hiram's production company and…

Her words eventually trail off and her shoulders lift in a silent shrug.

And it makes sense. You put the pieces together and you can see Santana pulling the strings behind the stage; you can see now why she noticed the lines you held in your dance, and with hindsight, with something like knowledge leading your thoughts, you remember back to when she complimented the _sheer genius_ of your cheese dipping show, and it makes more than sense now.

She understands what she's talking about. She has a vision too.

A vision that may as well be buried underneath all of the sand that surrounds you.

You ask why it was she stopped dreaming her dream and your words chase the last of the smile from her face. You've not seen before the look she's wearing now, and for a moment, in the second you see it, it breaks your heart. She just looks so… lost. Like the saddest little girl in the whole wide world, and you just want to hold her. You want to take that look away and banish it to a place where she'll never be able to find it again.

You can't help but find her hand again. You can't help the soft _hey _that slips from your lips as you pull her close to you. You shift your legs out so that you can fit her between them, and you link your arms around from behind and pull her back into your chest.

She doesn't speak for a moment and you don't break her silence.

You close your eyes and you breathe in the smell of her hair. You hold her a little tighter.

"I stopped dreaming," she says so quietly you have to really concentrate to hear her, "when all of my dreams got taken away. It hurts less to let them go than it would to remember. It doesn't…"

You know she's wanting to say it doesn't matter. And you don't let her.

"It does matter Santana." You squeeze your hold again to reaffirm your words and when she keeps her silence you offer her more. "I think your dream is a beautiful dream and I don't think you should forget it."

You feel her shrug within your arms and you push the point further.

"You know right, that no one can really steal your dreams away? They can make it harder to find them, sure, but they're yours Santana. No one has the right to take them from you."

When her hand lifts up and touches yours, you think at first that she's going to unravel herself from your arms, but she doesn't. She laces her fingers in between your own and she holds on tight. She says _thank you_, and you don't know what for.

"What about you BrittBritt," she asks after a time, and with her tone still tracing the quiet; "What's your big dream?"

You think you might be living it already.

You squeeze your legs together just a tiny bit, just to emphasise the hug you're holding her in, and you take a breath to steady your thoughts. "I don't know," you say, "I kind of already have everything that I always wanted, so."

"Everything?"

"Maybe. I mean, I want to go further… I have ideas for more shows I want to make, and one day, I don't know. Holly always talks about her time in New York and the energy on the east coast…"

It makes her laugh and you have to ask why.

"It's just funny. Even if things were different, I would've met you eventually."

You have to ask her how she means. You want to hear her say her thoughts.

"Think about it Britt; I would've been some hotshot producer on Broadway, you'd be the kickass MTV reporter covering my opening show…"

You do think about it. You think also about destiny and fate and that thing called serendipity.

She lets her words float off on the breeze and you place your chin atop her shoulder. Your lips are right next to her ear and you speak your words softly and only for her. "I think, probably," you say, still choosing your words carefully, "that your dream's still waiting for you, San. It's like, you just needed an awesome friend to come along and remind you how to dream it."

She doesn't answer and you don't need her to. You just need her to think about your words. It really is up to her if she decides to do anything with them. Fate can only go so far.

And this does feel like fate. More so with each new moment you share.

When she finds your other hand with hers and makes it so that she's hugging your arms around herself, you feel it a little further. If you ever doubted before that the soul was something corporeal, then all of your doubts have been washed away; the place that Santana touches, the place where you feel the weight of her caress is so deep, that the only word you have for it is your soul.

She speaks again and you're lost in your thoughts, and she has to tug on your hands to get your attention. "This was meant to be me cheering you up," she says when she's sure that you're listening. "So far it seems to me like you're the one doing all of the cheering."

"I _was_ head cheerleader for two years running," you tell her. "I have awesome cheering skills."

"You do," she agrees, "but that's not really the point." She shifts out of your arms now, and you're tempted to tell her that if that's her plan to cheer you then she's not doing so well. Not everyone had the benefit of Sue Sylvester screaming in their ears for years though, and you let it pass with just a pout.

She rolls her eyes at your look and settles herself next to you. "I wanted to see you," she says, and you accept that maybe she has some skills too. She regains the hold she had on one of your hands and she pulls it across and into her lap, "So what's Quinn's been doing to bother you now?" she asks when she catches your eye again and you can't help but dip your brow.

You want to talk about Quinn, you do. Yet you don't. And this day has been so perfect and…

"Talk to me Britt."

She strokes her fingers across the skin of your hand and you try and smile.

"It's nothing," you tell her and you watch her eyebrow raise. You can't blurt it out though and you divert the question around into something you can ask her instead. "How did you even become friends with Quinn?"

You watch both of her eyebrows raise at that ask and you wonder if it was the wrong one. You do want to know though; because when Santana talks in smiles and shares her stories and you hear the happy inside of her voice, it's all so far away from the Santana you see when she's with Quinn and the Santana you hear about when you're with Quinn, and you just don't understand at all.

She tells you it's complicated and her eyes drop to the sand. "It was one of those things that just happened, and now…" she looks at you and shrugs, "Now it's like a habit. I know too much shit about her and she has even more on me; that's how friendships work in our world, Britt. You pick the side you think is safest and you try your hardest to stay afloat."

It doesn't sound like any friendship you've ever known.

"She can be really mean," you say, and you really mean it.

"Yeah, I guess she can. Things is though, she's kind of earned it." That doesn't make sense to you and you question her more with your eyes. "Just, she's always been hard, like… her family are kind of whack, Britt, total hypocrites, so she's always had to bend a bit to make way for them, but…" she stops and she sighs and you squeeze her fingers between your own, "…Shit happened and it really fucked her up; hell, it pretty much fucked us all up, and what we're left with is what you see. She's not all bad though, really she's not. She just paints a really mean picture sometimes."

You don't say anything at first because you're too busy comparing. When Quinn spoke to you about Santana, she tried to emphasise bad points which felt foreign to you, yet now, listening to Santana talk about Quinn, you hear the acceptance in her voice and the honest sound of caring.

And now you have a choice to make.

Because a part of you wants to ask about the things that Quinn said. You want to lay out her words and have Santana refute them, you want her to rinse away the bitter taste that's lingered ever since you first had to hear them.

But you don't want to hurt Santana. And for better or for worse, no matter her messed up definitions, she sees Quinn as her friend.

In the end you search for middle ground. Santana asks you again what Quinn has done to upset you, and you edge a little towards the truth. "She said some stuff; mean stuff. I think she was warning me to stay away from you."

Even though you went in soft, your words change her face in an instant. Her eyes harden. She takes her hand away from yours.

You hear her say _for fuck's sake_ and you just wait for her to look at you again.

"What did you tell her?" she asks you, and you wonder why that's more important than what Quinn said herself.

"Nothing. I told her I hardly know you. That you're just friendly when we see each other."

"Did she buy it?"

You keep quiet.

And even through the comfort of her sweater, you still feel the chill.

She stands next from the space at your side and turns to look at the ocean while you look at the hard held line of her back.

"San," you say, and when she doesn't answer you say her name in full. "What's going on here?"

She shakes her head and you watch as she lifts her gaze up to sky and down again. When she turns around her eyes are heavy and she's worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth and you know, it's obvious, that she doesn't want to talk about it.

Yet she does. Or she starts to.

"Brittany," she says with a sigh, her gaze dropping down to your place in the sand until her eyes meet your own. You wait for her to say more, yet she looks away again in silence.

You stand because you feel useless sat down on the sand. You go to her and take her hand back in yours because you want to. You're looking out to the ocean, you're at her side and you have to tell her; "It doesn't matter."

She turns her head to look at you and you tell her why. "Out of all the things that do matter, whatever history you have with Quinn isn't one of those things. Not to me. Okay?"

"There's nothing there I'm proud of Britt."

"Still doesn't matter. Don't think you can't tell me things because you're worried about how I'll react."

She turns fully to you now and when she pulls you into her arms and just holds on tight, you hold her back. You don't know what words and secrets she's fighting with inside, but you want her to know you're not scared of them, whatever they are.

You don't expect her to speak again right now, but her words carry to your ear in a monotone, and you feel your stomach ache. "She was… Quinn and I, it was like, the first girl I…"

She trails off and you pick the words up to complete the sentence, "You were in love with her"?

She only holds you tighter and you feel her head shake _no. _"I promise you Britt," she says, "it's never once been anything to do with love. Not really."

Oh.

You think you knew that already though.

Because she already told you that Quinn isn't her awesome friend.

You step back a little from the hug, because you need to see her face now. You need to look into her eyes and know where you're standing.

"You slept together though, right?"

Your words come out a whisper when you speak and you're not even sure if you're really asking for confirmation. Not when the answer is already so obvious.

"Something like that. It just… it's fucked up. And now…"

"You think she'd be jealous of our… _friendship_?"

You ask because as much as you understand Santana, you don't understand Quinn.

"Not jealous, Britt, she'd be fucking livid; that's something that neither of us would enjoy very much."

Her eyes are honest and you believe what she says. Even though it still sits in a place where you can't make sense of it properly, you know that livid is exactly what Quinn would be. And you wonder if maybe there's love on her side, or maybe… You actually have no clue.

You don't understand Quinn at all.

And you don't really understand where that leaves you.

For a time you're quiet. You look away from Santana and find the ocean with your eyes again and stare out at the waves as they travel into the shore. Her hand when it finds yours is timid in its touch and you take your time bringing your gaze back to hers.

You tell her it's okay when you get there. You shrug off what she's told you and you try and lift your lips up into a smile. When she takes your other hand in hers as well and asks you to listen to her, you can't refuse.

"It's not okay, Britt. For a really long time I've told myself it's okay, but it's not."

"No?"

She shakes her head. She looks away. She looks back again.

"Maybe I just needed an awesome friend to come along and remind me, right?"

Her eyes look hopeful and you know she's asking a whole lot more with her question beyond the simple and obvious. She's asking you if she's messed it up already… she's really asking if you still want to be her awesome friend. She's telling you how much she needs you to be her awesome friend.

You understand Santana. Even hidden behind a depth of secrets you don't yet understand, you get her. And maybe that's fate or destiny or serendipity at play, you really don't care, you simply care about her, in all of her awesomeness.

It makes you smile instead of answering her question.

You lift one of her hands up and you place a gentle kiss on her skin, and when her eyes soften you lean forward and press your lips to her lips. "I think," you begin, and her eyes watch your mouth as it makes the words, "that we both needed an awesome friend to remind of us some stuff."

"What did I remind you of, BrittBritt?"

You want to tell her she reminded you of things you didn't even know yet.

But again you smile. You smile in a way that's close to a tease, and you scrunch your nose up a little at the look she gives you in return. "I can't you tell you yet," you say, and she shakes her head softly.

"Is this you mocking my complete inability to share, because that's kind of mean Britt?"

"I think you share fine," you say, and really you do. You're getting that her story is a hard one to tell and you understand that she's not in any rush to lay that all out before you; but she shows you more and more each time you're with her and you treasure her shares more than anyone else's. "I just… I'll tell you when the time's right, okay?"

She says _okay _and you take another quick kiss from her lips.

You want so much more than quickly, but as private as you are is not as private as you want to be, and you're really not sure how Santana would take it if you tackled her to the sand and kissed her senseless and slowly so out in the open.

Awesome friends are allowed to kiss, that's become a given, but you're not sure how far that rule extends when there are other eyes to see you.

You don't ponder the query.

She's tugging at your hand, and her head is tilted to the side, and you give her back all of your attention. "I want to kiss you," she says, but she leans back when you lean forward to give her what she wants. "No Britt, I want to really kiss you."

And you understand her. And she understands you. And when she smiles, you smile.

…

The time it takes for you to walk back across the sand to the place where she parked up her car isn't nearly as long as you feel it should be. Not once has she let go of your hand, and not once have you dropped the height of your smile.

You've learned so much today.

Some of it was heavy and you know the weight will still worry at your shoulders in moments of Quinn inspired insecurity, but your overall sense is one of brightness and light. She told you a dream that she's been denying herself from dreaming and you think that she maybe remembered how to dream it again. And she told you about her mom. And she shared with you some of her happiness.

And she wants to really kiss you.

It'd be the hardest thing in the world to keep the smile from your face.

When you get to the car she holds the passenger side door for you, and you're mostly certain that when she takes her place at your side, behind the wheel, that that will be the moment when she leans across to claim you.

Yet she doesn't. She smiles that smile at you, the one with the dimples and the bashful and hint of rosy behind her cheeks and she just says _thank you_. When you ask what for she shrugs her shoulders and looks away from you with her lips lifting high, and all the way back to your apartment you're left to wonder at the specificity behind her words and the secret behind her smile.

When she pulls up outside, it's still there and you really do have to ask why and what for and…

You know.

When she undoes her seatbelt and then leans across to undo yours, you know.

"Is this where we really kiss?" you ask, and she nods as she closes the distance between you.

You feel just her lips at first, soft against your own, and you can't help the way that you smile against her. It's like instant happiness, and when her hand comes up to trace a place at the back of your neck you lean fully into her kiss. Her tongue trips light against your lips and you open up to her without any resistance.

And she really kisses you.

Harder than she's kissed you before and with more intent then you've ever felt in any kiss. Her tongue touches you everywhere; it duels against your own in all the spaces of your mouth and whenever you pull away from her to find a breath, she buries it in the crevice of your neck, or in that spot behind your ear, or she traces it torturously along the collarbone she's exposed by pulling at your shirt. Your lips she sucks between her own at every opportunity, and each tiny nip of her teeth which she can't seem to control, only brings out a heated whimper which you have no control over either.

You want her so bad. You're literally seconds away from pulling her across the centre console and landing her in your lap, with her skirt riding up her thighs and everything you want within a fingers distance away. Yet she pulls back and you fall forward and she laughs like the first time she ever touched you with her lips.

"That…" you say, and you can't do anymore that shake your head.

You put your hand to her jacket and you pull her towards you again, but she only flits the tiniest of kisses to your lips before she again retreats back.

You say her name. It may sound like a whine.

Yet she's breathing heavy, and her eyes are wide and she can't keep her gaze centred on your face… And you know. She doesn't want to stop kissing you.

She wants so much more than kisses too.

She sits back in her seat and she puts her hands firmly around the steering wheel, with her eyes closed and her breathing still deep, and you know you shouldn't…

But you touch her. Just your hand, on her thigh, just to get her to look at you.

Yet she looks at your hand, her eyes widen, and you think maybe she _squeaks_?

"San?" you say, your smile back high on your lips. "Are you okay?"

"Really not," she answers, and she's not smiling.

You lean across and kiss her cheek. You show her where her dimple should be.

"I think I should probably go in," you say, and you really think that you probably should. Your hand is starting to move a little, your fingers are starting to trace a tiny pattern up and down the soft fabric of her skirt and you really need to stop yourself.

When her hand drops to yours and lifts it up to her lips, you guess she really needed you to stop too.

"I think you probably should," she agrees, yet she still has your hand.

You tug it a little, to remind her to let go, and you start to shrug your arm out of the sweater she loaned you at the beach. You don't get far though; she tugs the arm back down over your hand and she tells you to hang on to it.

"But, it's your favourite," you say, and she smiles that smile again.

And she kisses your lips again. And she says _goodbye. _

And you hug yourself inside of her sweater and you watch her drive away.

…


	11. Bursting Bubbles

A/N: Hey - I just wanted to say thank you again to all you readers and followers and favouriters and reviewers. You're all so incredibly awesome and you're making this so incredibly fun, that... THANK YOU. I kind of love you all. A lot :)

...

Monday morning you're back in the company of Quinn, and for as much as you worried yourself Sunday night about how that would go, her countenance today has been nothing other than warm and friendly. She embraced you closely in greeting and not once has she referred to Santana or to the conversation she'd forced you to endure at dinner on Saturday night.

You're glad of it, because you really don't know how to feel about Quinn at the moment. Professionally, you're completely on point. You had an appearance on MTV News this morning to discuss Friday's show and what's ahead, and to generally drum up some more excitement and enthusiasm, and you took Quinn along with you. You hammed it up in front of the cameras and you feel like you played it to perfection; your arm you'd thrown around her shoulders in easy familiarity and you referred to her as _my girl Quinn_ when you spoke about how much fun you've been having hanging out together. You sealed the deal by mentioning her super special appearance on your super special edition of Fondue for Two in a couple of weeks, and you're pretty confident that if there is any truth to the mythical _Brittany Effect, _then Quinn will currently be bathing in the best of it.

Personally, though… You're finding it a little difficult. You've returned all of the smiles she's sent your way and your voice has lilted towards light and carefree, yet on the inside you're neither light nor free of care. You just.

You just don't know.

This whole new feeling you've found in Santana is beyond every height of happiness you've ever scaled before; yet there's Quinn. There's always Quinn; casting her shadow over every picture perfect scenario you dare to imagine.

You know now that she was there for Santana's first time with a girl, and that's something else you don't know how you feel about. You're not sure if it's plain jealousy that's creating the ache in your stomach, or if it's some kind of possessive streak you're just discovering you own, you only know that the ache is there and it's centred on the thought of Santana's naked adventures with Quinn. You wish you could ignore it, like, everyone has an ex or two. It's not a big deal, it's never bothered you before, yet, you can't ignore because you're not even sure how ex it is exactly. You didn't ask Santana for details. You don't want details. You just want to know…

You still don't know what exactly. Or you do. But you're desperate not to think it.

It all makes you more than relieved when your time together is up for the day. Your afternoon is filled with meetings and more work, so aside from the News show you don't have an excessive amount of time with Quinn, and for that you're grateful. Tomorrow you have a photo-shoot for more Rock the Vote promotion and you tell her when she hugs you again in farewell, that you'll see her then.

Even without her by your side, it is still a little hard to find focus. You're fine during your meeting with Holly; Sam is by your side and he's so enthusiastic for all of your ideas, that you forget about the subject and just delight within the feel of your team finally kicking some ass. It's in the other meetings where your mind sets to wandering. It's after your phone has buzzed it's silent vibration and you've glanced down and seen Santana's nameflash up on your screen that you lose the thread, because really, when it's men in suits versus Santana, your mind is only ever going to wander one way.

You still smile enough and nod enough to make it through. You're still mostly professional, and you hide your distraction well, but your hand does slip your phone down from the desk in front of you to nestle hidden in your lap, and you do open your text message inbox and…

"_I'm craving hotdogs at the beach."_

Just that.

Your ability to text without needing to look allows you to fire of a quick _me too _without drawing any attention to yourself, and that's the entirety of your exchange. It's enough entirety to tease your heart into beating faster though; because it's like saying _I miss you_, or even _I want to be with you_, or even, most accurately on your part, _I can't stop thinking about you._

It's not about the hotdogs and the beach, no matter how awesome they were. It's just about Santana, and your craving is feeling constant. You eat your canteen served dinner without tasting one piece of it, and when Sam drops you home after the last ounce of work has been wrung from your body, you collapse on your sofa and still you crave.

It's like a constant distraction; a buzzing in the back of your brain that you can't seem to shake. You turn on the TV and surf through 146 channels without finding anything to rest your mind on, you feed fresh fish to Lord Tubbington and you roll him onto his back and you lose your hands in the soft feel of his fur; yet even the loudest of his purrs isn't enough to really tease your attention away from where it wants to rest.

When your phone rings you jump. You're expecting it, kind of, but it's more of a hope than a definite, so it startles you at first when the noise breaks the silence. The smile you find so naturally is forced to drop though when it's Holly's name that flashes up across your screen and not the one you wish to see.

You listen to her words, your eyes widen, and for a minute, your thoughts actually are distracted from their constant keening towards Santana. Tomorrow's photo-shoot is not just for you and Quinn… Tina and Rachel will be there also.

You don't listen to the logistics because you're lost in the lunacy.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" you ask, because to you it seems kind of… _risky_.

Yet Holly had called it an excellent idea.

"_Time to ramp up the rivalry, Britts!" _

Only you're not really sure that it needs ramping up. It seems to you that the whole Quinn/Rachel situation is some kind of cinder pile just waiting to reignite, and you don't want to be the one bringing a lit match to the party. You don't want to even be at the party. You really have no say in the matter though.

Your words to Holly all insist that it's a situation you'll be able to handle fine, and it's only once you hang up the phone that you let the realisation of what awaits you tomorrow really hit home.

Quinn and Rachel. In the same room.

The thought of it does provide a distraction from your distraction. At least until your phone rings again.

You don't smile this time before you look at your screen; you refuse to be caught out twice, yet when you look it says _Santana, _and when you answer, your voice is already full of smiles.

"Hey," you say, drawing the greeting out, and she answers you just the same.

You ask how she is, and for a long moment you just listen to her rambling on about her day, with intermittent bouts of laughter. She's telling you all about her _terrible_ time spent accompanying her abuela to some _stuck-up conservative 'ladies' function_, yet the tone of her voice is wrapped tight in delight and even if her tale is one based on the hardships of dealing with the over-sixties sanctimonious set, it's a tale you enjoy the telling of.

"You sound like you've had as much fun today as me," you tell her when her words come to a stop, and when she questions you, you fill her in on your ever so exciting afternoon spent sat behind various desks, and the hardships of dealing with visionless men dressed in depressing grey suits.

It's not actually that bad at all. Sometimes it seems like it; like when you're trying to justify the idea of taking Lord Tubbington to Disney World for a Fondue for Two special with Minnie Mouse, or when you're trying to explain the validity of booking actual live bands for your show rather than relying on playing the same old videos as every other show plays, but mostly you do fine with the higher ups. It's only when you don't get your way that you moniker them as visionless men in boring grey suits, and today was particularly long.

When you're done with the telling of your day, you both find the silence.

It's not the silence of nothing to say, but rather the silence of so much to say.

In the end you tell her you're still craving hotdogs, you tell her you wish you were walking on the beach. You tell her the most of what you feel you can say without saying everything.

Her silence lasts a little longer than yours, yet when she ends it, she does say everything.

"_I miss you, Brittany."_

And it sounds so honest and so heartfelt and so everything you needed to hear, that the pain of not being with her actually hits you like a physical pain. It's an actual ache attached to the tone of her voice, and you just…

"I miss you too, Santana. So much."

You know you sigh, you hear her sigh. And,

"_When can I see you again?"_

"You can see me anytime you want to, San."

"_I can't see you now."_

You sigh again.

Because she has a point.

"I have a photo-shoot with Quinn tomorrow," you offer tentatively, and you're going to say more, but-

"_I can be there. Abuela's certain that the sun shine's straight from the crack in Quinn's ass, so that won't be a problem at all."_

You tell her the problem. You tell her how you just found out that Rachel will be there too; that this is a shoot for the whole of the show and not just for your part of it. You expect her to rewind her words about coming along and defer to a different day instead, yet she's silent for a moment, then she just says _okay._

"Okay? You mean you're still going to come?"

"_Sure. Maybe, right?" _You wait for her to say more, and you note the changing tone in her voice when she does; _"Maybe I can keep a lid on Quinn; remind her that we're not actually in high school anymore."_

You listen as she finds another sigh. You ache some more to touch her.

"Will _you_ be okay seeing Rachel?" you question softly, because to you, it really is all that matters.

"_Can't say I'm looking forward to it, but, I don't know…"_ She trails off and you wonder at filling in her words. You wonder until she speaks again and then you know. _"…I haven't thought about the old times in so long Britt; I buried all of that stuff the same day I bur…"_

She stops herself from saying the words, yet you hear them.

You say _Santana, _and she speaks again; _"I'm okay. I guess it's just been a real long stretch since I saw Rachel as anyone other than an enemy. It's like…"_

This time when she stops, she doesn't say more and you don't push her to. You tell her she really doesn't need to come, that you'll find some other way to see each other super soon, but she hushes you.

"_I'll be there, Brittany."_

"You will?"

"_I will."_

And you smile again. You smile while you tell her the rest of your evening's plans, and you smile even higher when she tells you that her night is going to be spent curled around a book and her bed and her thoughts of seeing you in the morning.

You really smile, really big.

"You say the most awesome things," you tell her.

"_I do?" _she asks.

"You really do," you answer.

And she really, really does.

…

You arrive at the location for the photo-shoot early. You're dressed down casual with your hair still wet from a shower, and you're waiting now to go into makeup before you're dragged back to the dressing room and decked out in glamour. That's the theme apparently; _glamour_. You're posing on some mock-up grand old staircase and the idea is of some old family rivalry crossed with high society and… You don't get the point to be honest, you're just waiting to see your outfit.

When Quinn arrives you're sat in the stylists chair, facing the mirror, and you're being primped and painted and made to look pretty. You watch as her reflection comes up behind you, and you smile and you wait to see how she greets you. You did speak to her last night to inform her of the Rachel situation, but she blew off your concerns with barely a word of interest, as if seeing Rachel is of no concern to her at all.

"Hey, Quinn," you say, shifting to turn around in your seat and look at her properly.

She leans down and air-kisses the space at your cheek, and then she pulls herself back to allow the makeup artist to carry on with her job. "Brittany," she says, her voice flitting fast around brisk and breezy, "you look stunning already!"

You smile higher and you cast your gaze back to the mirror in front of you, and yeah, you're looking pretty good, you guess. Your eyes have been cast in light shadows of smoky grey, and there's definitely something sultry you see when you look back to glimpse your reflection.

Santana's eyes are on the mirror, and they're on you, and she winks when you see her.

It's so quick you only notice because your eyes are on her too, yet she does wink at you.

"Brittany," she says, her voice sounding almost chilled compared to its normal warm temperature, and you have to fight really hard not to laugh away her composure.

"Santana, hi. Nice to see you again."

"Uh-huh."

You watch her reflection affect a bored walk to the couch opposite you and when she slouches and picks up a discarded magazine, you return your attention to Quinn. She's being ushered into the chair two down from yours, and you begin an easy conversation about the idea behind the photo-shoot, and whether she's posed much like this in front the cameras before.

The schedule is quite simple. First it will be just you and Quinn posing on the set, and then Rachel and Tina will join you for some group shots, and then once you're done with those, you and Quinn are free to leave while Rachel and Tina do their own duo shots. It's very cordial written down on paper, and you hope that the atmosphere stays that way when you're all forced to be together.

When Quinn begins to tell you about her plans for tomorrow, you fade out a little bit. You know her plans; they mean you have a free day and you're pretty made up about it. You still have things to do, you're never really free in the midst of a show, but you have a Quinn-free day and you're kind of happy about that. She's going to some Father/Daughter church related thing and she won't be back until Thursday morning, so…

You just spend your time looking at Santana. You watch her watching you through the mirror and you can't look away. You don't look away until Quinn calls your attention back, and even then you allow yourself constant flits of fancy to gaze upon her face.

She's just so incredibly pretty. Today she's wearing leggings and boots and a loose fitting white vest marked by some random design on the front, and she shouldn't, really, but she looks quite beautiful. Her hair is down and straightened, and shining bright under the lights, and…

"Brittany?"

"Huh?"

You look back to Quinn and the look she's shooting you is kind of creepy. Not scary creepy, but creepy in the way that you're sure she's reading all of your thoughts.

"I just said, twice, that you're welcome to come with me if you want to? It's quite formal, and there's a whole lot of speeches to get through before the fun really starts, but we do usually find the fun at some point; don't we Santana?"

Your gaze flicks to her reflection, it flicks to her face. It rests on her words.

"I'm not going, Quinn."

"You're really still insisting on that?" Quinn asks.

"Absolutely. I'm not spending my night cosying up to _papi_ just to get to the free booze. I'd rather stay home and… Do anything." You watch her shrug her shoulder, "I'm not going."

"This latest bout of rebellion is getting really old, really quickly," Quinn replies, and her tone is no longer breezy. "I personally don't care whether you come or not, but if you don't get back to toeing the line soon, you know who will care?"

"Maybe I'm done with toeing the line."

She puts the magazine she's been holding down beside her on the couch and she stands up from where she's been sitting. She catches your gaze quickly before she looks away, and then she tosses out words to Quinn about needing fresh air.

"Just think about it," Quinn says as she exits the door, yet you start to think about it instead.

In the end you ask because you feel you can. Because it's just conversation and you really don't get it, "What's the big deal if she goes or not?"

The make-up artist tells you you're done and you stand from your chair while you wait for Quinn to answer. Her eyes are on you in the mirror, and she takes her time to find her words. "To me; no particular big deal. Her abuela really is hard-line though Brittany, and at the moment Santana is skating outside all of those lines. She's on thin ice and when it cracks, well, let's just say there's a plane ticket with her name on, and it won't be a return."

You just say _huh. _You've lost all of your other words in a state of confusion.

"Her abuela wants to take her back with her to Puerto Rico; it's a long story, really, but that's the basic upshot. She doesn't think Santana's blossoming into what a good Catholic girl should be in this sin-pit of decadence…" She laughs to herself and you don't join in. "…She probably has a valid point."

You want to say something but you're not really sure where you'd begin, so you say nothing. When the makeup artist nudges you again to remind you that you have places to be, you just tell Quinn you'll see her in wardrobe, and you leave.

And you wonder how long it would take you to ride a scooter to Puerto Rico.

…

It's hard to even fake a smile when you're first placed in front of the camera. You've been dressed in a long golden ball gown and your hair has been curled up onto your head and your wearing the prettiest jewellery you've seen in a long while, but still. It's hard to even fake a smile.

You do your best, you follow all of the directions the photographer is giving to you, but you're heart really isn't in it at all. It's way too busy trying to brush up on its high school geography right now, because the thought of Santana being somewhere far away is all too much for you to think about. You want to feel sure that it's one of those empty threats and that her abuela just uses it as a means to control, yet… You don't know. And you haven't seen Santana to speak to or to ask and… You don't know.

It's only when her eyes are on you again that you begin to relax.

She's been shown into the studio by some member of crew or another, and she stands just off to the side, watching you from the wings. Quinn throws various comments her way, but you barely listen to the queries and you don't listen at all to Santana's answers. It's all just background noise to the conversation you're having within the depth of your stares, and that's the thing you focus upon to get your lips lifting again.

Sometimes she pulls a goofy face and you almost laugh. More than once she's slid you another of those sly and sultry winks when Quinn's attention has been drawn elsewhere. In fact, you're so focused on the different ways that she's finding to delight you, that you almost forget that Tina and Rachel are coming too.

When the photographer interrupts your surreptitious gazes and calls break though, you're forced to remember your schedule pretty quickly.

Tina enters first and she looks amazing; her hair is up with just a few soft strands framing her face and she's wearing a gown just as elegant as yours. She waves to you and you wave back. And then Rachel enters the room and the whole atmosphere changes. You wouldn't say it gets particularly cold or chilled, it's more a tension that settles across your shoulders and knots the muscles in your neck as you wait for something to happen.

At first, nothing does.

You introduce Tina to Quinn, Rachel pulls you into a tightly hugged _hello_ and gushes quickly over compliments about how stunning you look, and then… Well, it's actually kind of weird. Quinn is smiling as she approaches Rachel in the same way the spider who invited the fly into his parlour probably fashioned his smile, while Rachel is beaming what you imagine to be her very best stage smile at a wattage somewhere close to Super-Trouper bright and blinding.

"Quinn," she says, performing an air kiss similar to the one Quinn had given to you.

"Rachel," Quinn replies.

And that's it. No fireworks, no explosions, just the settling of the strange tension over the room as you count down the minutes and wait for what you feel is surely inevitable. Santana is hidden far back in the wings now and she hasn't moved forward to say anything to anyone, and that on its own is enough to make you nervous. You know that this is a big deal for her, and you want to be by her side and holding her hand, and listening to whatever it is that the sight of Rachel is causing her to feel.

You just pose though; you pull mock glares in Tina's direction and you raise your fists high whenever you're told to, as if you're all about to engage in the reality of a fight. It takes a whole lot longer with four people than two, and the session drags way beyond the quick set up of this morning until it's not even any fun anymore. You just want to be done and you want to speak to Santana and you still really want to know where Puerto Rico is.

When Rachel begins talking at you, it doesn't register at first. It's only when her volume rises and you remember the ear buzz of before, that you turn your gaze her way to listen to what it is she has to say.

"I was asking about Lord Tubbington," she repeats for you, the bright lights smile still high on her face. "I've been playing your show to my cat continuously and I think she may have developed quite the feline crush; we should arrange a play-date for them, perhaps, when you have the time?"

As mad as it is, it's also kind of cute, and you can't help the soft smile that slips onto your lips.

"He's really good," you tell her, taking a moment to sit down on the staircase you've been constantly posed upon. "He's not dating anyone at the moment, so…"

"Oh wonderful! My _Celine_ is a Siamese and she's been single for months."

She comes and sits two steps above yours and you turn slightly to face her. "Siamese?" you check, and she nods an enthusiastic confirmation. "Tubbs has had a thing for that breed ever since the first time I showed him Lady and the Tramp."

"Shall we call it a date then?"

You laugh and she joins you and you forget about Quinn.

"Well isn't this all kinds of adorable," she speaks from the sidelines, and you remember that she's there. Her tone you're sure is meant to sound sweet, but it reminds you of Splenda instead of real sugar, and you know that her words are all just as fake.

Rachel stands and you imagine that will be the end of it, but Quinn continues; "Oh no, Berry, don't get up on my account. I can't imagine anything more exciting than hearing how you plan on pimping out your pussy to Brittany."

She smiles an icy smile and you finally feel the chill. Her eyes are zeroed in on Rachel and her tone is both mean and mocking, and this is all that you expected. Rachel isn't cowering beneath her gaze though; her eyes are just as focused on Quinn and she isn't backing down; "I see your insults have matured just as much as you have, Quinn. I guess an Ivy League education isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"Well, they had no places left at the Leotard School for Losers; I make do with what I can." She drops the smile and her lips twist closer to a snarl instead. "How is Finn, by the way?"

You can't get a read on Rachel's face, but her words are hard and dismissive. "Finn is fantastic, thank you for asking."

You wait for Quinn's retort, but it's Santana's voice that cuts fast through the air. "We all know that's a fucking lie, Berry; Finn couldn't even spell fantastic, let alone enact it."

She's stepped forward into view and her arms are crossed tight against her chest. Her eyes are the kind of dark you don't like to see, and you want to step towards her and lighten up her load. You don't though; you turn your head when Rachel speaks and you see that her face is now all kinds of readable.

"Santana," she says, and it sounds a lot like a sneer. "I should've guessed you'd still be stuck playing Quinn's trusted sidekick… I guess SAT scores really don't translate into anything like ambition. Such a shame."

You want to cower away from Santana's response, but it doesn't come.

You watch her take in a deep breath and you watch her release it.

And then she turns from all of you, and she walks away.

…

You find her in the back bathroom. The photographer had obviously picked up on the tension and he'd wrapped up the remaining part of yours and Quinn's poses pretty quickly, and then you'd both been dismissed. You let Quinn make her way back to wardrobe and makeup on her own, insisting you'd be along in a minute, that you just have some calls to make, like, to Sam and to Holly. And then you find her in the back bathroom.

It's quite a nice bathroom; there's two private stalls and carpet on the floor, and the sinks are set back into a shelf with a big ornate mirror rising up behind them. There's a small chaise-lounge set into an alcove at the back of the room, and that's where you find her; sitting with her legs drawn up in front of her and her chin resting down on her knees.

"I found you," you say, when you've crossed the space of the floor to stand before her, yet she doesn't meet your eyes with a smile. She has a frown etched into her forehead and you can't help but find a matching one for your own. "Hey," you try next, and you watch her as she sighs before she replies.

"Are they done out there?" she eventually asks, and you tell her that they are.

"Quinn's back in makeup being defaced; we have some time, if you want."

When she still doesn't smile you take the one step more needed until you're close enough to touch, and you lean down and lift her chin up with your finger. Her eyes meet yours and you hold her gaze, and again you tell her _hey. _You also ask if she's okay, because everything about her is telling you that she's sinking much closer to the opposite of okay.

"I'm fine, Britt," she assures you, lifting her hand to take a hold of yours and to pull it down from her face. She doesn't let go though, she wraps her fingers softly around your own and she squeezes lightly. "I wasn't going to get involved, you know?" she says with a sigh. "I can't stand it when she talks about Finn like he's something special though; the guy's a _fucking_ douche, and all of us know it."

You've never heard her mention Finn's name before, and aside from the minor pieces of gossip you've heard in relation to him and Quinn and Rachel, you know nothing about him.

You're not sure if you're meant to ask now, or if you're meant to say nothing, and so you settle for just touching her some more. You lift your other hand up to push her hair back behind her ear, and when she lifts her eyes again you offer her another smile; "I've never met him," you tell her, "but he sounds like a real piece of work."

You fashion your face into your meanest look and she does smile back at you. Just slightly, not enough to find her dimples, but you take it as a start.

"He's actually a piece shit," she says, "but he knew how to throw a football in high school, and apparently that counts for everything…" Her words peter out and she ends her sentence with another sigh. She closes her eyes and shakes her head and when she looks back up at you and asks when all this crap will ever be over, you don't know what to say. You didn't know that Finn was even a part of the crap. You know that he was embroiled in some kind of love-tug between Rachel and Quinn, but how exactly that applies to Santana, you have no idea.

You don't tell her though that you don't have answers, you don't shrug your shoulders and give her your blankest of faces; you smile again, soft and sure and with all the things that she makes you feel. You hold her gaze silent for longer than a ten count, and when you see her eyes soften, you scrunch up your nose. She whispers a quiet _hey_ and you know that she's really seeing you now, and no longer the problems she pictures before her.

"I'm sorry Britt," she says next, squeezing the hand that she still has a hold of.

"Sorry?" you say, "what for?"

Because you really don't see that she has anything to be sorry for.

She drops her legs down from the chair, and she lifts her other hand to lightly finger your dress. It's barely a touch, like a butterfly fluttering across your silk covered stomach, but you still feel a shiver and you draw in a breath. "You look so pretty today," she says, pulling her hand away, "and I didn't even stop to tell you. What kind of awesome friend does that make me, huh?"

You don't answer right away. You tug on the hand you're holding until she stands before you, and again you tuck her hair back from her face and behind her ear. "I don't think," you say, your voice teasing serious, "that I told you how pretty you look today either, so I'm totally willing to let it slide."

"You look _so_ amazing though."

"So do you."

"Britt…"

You lean forward and rub your nose gently against hers. You say it again the way that Eskimos say it, and when you pull back, you see that soft hint of something like awe in her eyes. "You're the best awesome friend, Santana," you softly assure her, "and I think you always look amazing."

She drops her gaze and you take her other hand in yours too, wrapping your fingers around her skin and squeezing her lightly. "Also, you always make me feel amazing, so…"

You do shrug your shoulder now, a little, because it feels like you're saying a lot and you don't want it to be too much. Yet her eyes slide back to yours, and there's a smile which hints at something hopeful when she asks, "I do?"

"Totally."

Her eyes flick to your lips and watch her smile grow..

"You make me feel amazing too, Brittany," she whispers.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Totally."

Her lips lift in the smallest of smirks when she mimics your _totally_ and you have to taste it. Just a tiny taste, just a kiss almost chaste as you press against her lips and pull slowly back again.

And she still smirks. "See?" she says, "Amazing."

And you taste it again. A little less chaste and a little more insistent, like the slightest release of the tension that's teasing you, yet still not a really kiss. Because…

As much as you came in here looking for her and wanting to see that she was okay, you came in here for another reason too, and when you pull back and her eyes are staring into you, you remember your reasons and your face tugs down at a frown. It's the smallest of gestures, not much more than a twitch, but she sees and she asks, and you try and smile with your words.

"I was just wondering," you say, "how far away is Puerto Rico?"

Her eyes flinch at your query, and she lets go of your hands to touch at her hair. When she asks you _why_, you raise up your shoulder and let it drop down again, "I don't know, just…"

"Let me guess," she says, and you watch her as she walks towards the sink and considers herself in the mirror. "Quinn's been running her mouth again, right?"

"I just think," you say, "that you should maybe go with her to that thing tomorrow."

"Did she tell you to say that?"

You shake your head _no, _and you take one step towards her. "I just asked why it was so important, and she said…" You pause as you run through Quinn's words in your head. "…She said your abuela wants to take you to Puerto Rico because you're skating on thin ice."

She laughs like a sigh and she catches your eye in the mirror. "She really said that?"

You nod your head and she turns to face you, leaning her body back against the low shelf with her head tilted to the side. She folds her arms in front of her chest and she bites on her lip for a second as if she's thinking things through before she settles on words. "I'm not going anywhere, Britt."

You take another step and you ask her; "No?"

"No. It's just a crazy thing my abuela says when she's run out of other crazy things to say. She's also hoping to marry me off to my second cousin Paulo, and turn me into a housebound, bambino-making-machine, so really…"

She shrugs, but her arms are still crossed over her chest and you can see her thoughts are stuck on the defensive. "But you won't go?" you say, just to say something.

You take the two more steps and it's close enough to reach out and run your fingertips along the length of her arm until you find her hand. You tug gently, you pull her crossed armed posture down, and you slip your fingers between hers.

"There's not even a chance," she says, her free hand dropping to the shelf and her other one squeezing back against yours. "I don't know why Quinn even said it; she knows as well as I do that I'd never give in to that."

You don't know why Quinn said it either. She'd seemed quite serious in the moment though, and you hadn't picked up on any obvious undercurrent of deception… Yet. With Quinn you just don't know anything at the moment. You ask once more, just to truly confirm what you want to hear and she smiles at you. She really smiles at you.

"Britt," she says, and she pokes at that fluttering feeling in your stomach again, "I am not, under any circumstances, going to live in Puerto-fucking-Rico, okay?"

And you really smile too. "Is that its official name?"

"Uh-huh," she tells you, and she finds your other hand again.

When she tugs you slowly towards her, you reward her with another soft kiss. "Besides," she says, when you lean the smallest distance back, "I don't have _any_ awesome friends down there."

"Not even Paulo?"

She shakes her head with a mocked up grimace attached to her lips and you let out a small laugh. "Definitely not Paulo," she says, and this time she reaches up to place something soft against your lips. You can feel her smile against your own and you want to really kiss her.

When she pulls away though, when she looks into your eyes in that way which catches your breath, you're glad you waited. "You're my only awesome friend BrittBritt," she says, her voice wrapping around every level of cute you've ever experienced, "I'm not going anywhere."

And you _have_ to kiss her.

And you _do_ kiss her. You push your lips against hers and you hold them there for just a moment, and your stomach flutters, and you hear her sigh, and you lose it. You lose the sense of softness she brings to you and you ignite within the moment; your hands dropping to the shelf as you press against her and into her. Your tongue invades her mouth without waiting for invitation and the moan she makes only pleads with you to give her more.

You slide your hands along the shelf until your touching either side of her hips, and then you slide them down to her thighs, and when she sighs again, you lift her easily up onto the shelf behind her. She brings her legs up to wrap around your waist and when she pulls you flush against her, you have to break the kiss. For air, for sanity, for the chance to taste the skin on her neck with your lips and your tongue; and she tastes amazing and you forget about air and…

"_Brittany," _she whispers, or she moans, or she groans, and it does nothing to stop your assault against the smoothness of her skin. Her hands are gripping the shelf hard, and she's leaning her head back to give you the best kind of access, and you pull at her vest, just slightly, just to the side, just to trace the graze of your kiss against her collarbone, just to taste that one inch more of everything you want.

When her legs tighten and she grinds herself up against the silk of your dress, you think that maybe you groan or moan or sigh this time. You say her name, and you find her lips again and you pour everything into the kiss. Everything you feel, all of your wants which feel like needs, you give to her. And her hands leave the shelf and they grip against your back and now you're grinding into her and she's anchored against you…

And you don't even hear it.

You don't hear the door open or your name being spoken.

Because you just want Santana.

You don't hear the _"Brittany, I was just looking for you to…" _

But you think you hear the shock in the silence. And your eyes race up to the mirror.

…

Rachel.

With her eyes wide and her mouth open and…

Santana. Your gaze races to find hers yet she's looking straight past you, and…

Rachel.

And for a moment you can't form a thought. Not a thing. Santana's touch drops away from you and you turn around fast, ready to find words to make excuses which you know won't hold. You were full on making out with Santana, and you don't think there's any excuse for that beyond the one where you just wanted to.

"Rachel," you say, and you sound as breathless as you feel. Yet she doesn't look to you, her eyes are going past you and you know she's fixed on Santana. Her gaze has dipped, she's showing confusion, and all you can do is wait.

"Well," she says, still looking past you, "I guess things really haven't changed at all."

You can't read her tone, yet you can still see signs of confusion on her face.

"Get out, Rachel."

Santana's tone sounds nothing but weary.

"Aren't you going to threaten me first; isn't that how this goes?"

The silence of the non-reply has you turning your head to find Santana. And still she's looking at Rachel, and you wonder where they both are. What memory they're reliving, which piece of their past you've just reignited. She eventually says _just go away, Berry_ and she only sounds resigned.

Your hand goes to her knee and your gaze goes to Rachel again. "Can you please just go?" you say softly, and finally she looks at you.

"Brittany, I…"

Her words trail off. Her eyes flick to Santana and then back to you. "I'm going to go," she says when she speaks again, and you think maybe you smile at her words. You really don't know.

You watch her turn and exit the door. You feel the fluttering in your stomach turn into an ominous thump. Like an ache, like a confrontation, and at first you don't turn back to her. It's only when her hand touches the hand you're holding on her knee that you look up.

She's not smiling or scowling or _anything. _She's staring at her hand on yours and she's wrapped tight in silence. "Santana," you say, and when she meets your eyes, you see something like pain there. You don't ask if she's okay; you know.

"I could speak to her…" you try, searching out a solution. "…She likes me, I think; I could tell her not to say anything, I can ask her not to tell Quinn."

"She won't tell Quinn; she hates Quinn."

"Okay," you say, "then what can I do?"

Her eyes close and they open and they sparkle in the sad way. "You really don't need to do anything Britt. Rachel's a lot of things, but she's not that. She won't say anything; that's never been her agenda."

You wonder at the choice of words, at what her agenda is. You feel your eyebrows dip to ask, but she's too busy breathing deep to catch your question. Not just once, but twice and then three times, as if she's searching for air but it's proving elusive.

You turn to fully face her and she mumbles something, maybe, but you don't hear her words. You say her name; you call her _Honey, a_nd she looks at you and her eyebrows dip. And then her eyes widen and she shakes her head back and forth.

And she looks… _scared._

You can't think of any other word for it, because that's exactly how she looks to you.

You go to reach your arms up and put them around her but she brings her hands up to stop you and you pause in mid-air. "Santana," you say, and she closes her eyes.

"I don't know, Britt…"

"Hey?"

This time she does let you embrace her, she lets you pull her forward and into your hold, but she's so stiff and you can't soothe her, and you can _feel_ her fear. It touches you where your skin touches hers, and you feel it as it slides inside and takes root in your gut.

When you hear her words, when you hear her say, _I don't think I can do this_, you freeze; your hands against her back, no longer rubbing soft, your heart inside your chest, afraid to take a beat. She says _God_ and it sounds like she's pleading for something.

You say _Santana, _and you know that you are.

She holds on tighter. She squeezes against you as hard as before, and you wish so bad you could just turn the time back, just a few minutes, just to that time before her old-founded fears had crashed through the door to seek her out. Yet time is that thing you still haven't cracked, and you're forced to stand here in this time, cradling her against you without words to say.

You don't know if her sparkle has turned to tears against your shoulder. You just feel a solitary shake and you whisper a _hush _into her ear. And you hold her while she clings tight to you.

…

When you leave the bathroom you sink into silence. You had held Santana through her one shake and her two shakes, and through several minutes more. You whispered words you no longer remember and you tried your hardest to understand. Your every fear had crystallised into one fear and you were sure that when she pulled back from you it was going to be with more regret in her eyes and shame on her face. Yet her face was blank and she whispered no regret.

"I should go," she said, and it sounded like emptiness.

She slipped down from the shelf and stood beside you, yet she didn't walk away. Her hand nudged at yours until your fingers wrapped around her own and again she took in a long deep breath as she set her shoulders straight.

"What a fucked up day, huh?" you heard her say, and you found her eyes again.

"Are you okay?" you asked, and she had nodded, a little, and she had squeezed your hand.

"I better find Quinn."

You hadn't wanted her to find Quinn, you wanted her to stay with you until you could unravel all of her thoughts and all of the things which are causing her fear and make it all okay again.

Instead you sunk into silence. You smiled when she said she'd call you later and when she'd kissed your hand before walking from the door, you'd felt the sparkle spreading to your own eyes. It's just, a lot.

Not too much, but a lot.

You think you know the thoughts she's wrestling with. The same ones which had tainted her words in the gazebo and insisted at the things she isn't allowed. It's like, you just eased each other into a place where _awesome friends _was picking up the slack for the real words you can't yet say, and then, _Rachel_. You're sure that Santana's fear didn't come from the thought of sudden exposure, because she sounded more than certain when she said that Rachel wouldn't be the kind of person to spill those secrets… But you think, perhaps, that maybe in the moment she was reminded of all of the things she's feeling for you, and the place wasn't a safe one when she was made to remember.

When it's just the two of you it's like the world goes away and there's a bubble about you that wraps you up and shrouds you inside of the feeling and nothing feels unsafe or said out of place. But in the starkness of the bathroom after your enforced interruption, the bubble had burst and the feelings were still there and…

You called her _Honey. _You saw her face change. You saw her confusion and then she pulled back, and now you're only shrouded in the silence of worry.

It makes your afternoon pass with a dour disposition and even when you see Sam, he can't find the smile that's gone missing from your lips. He tries really hard, he prods and he pokes at you and he drops his voice low; "This is your best friend calling _bullshit, _Britt_;_ it's obvious you're not okay."

But you don't take his offer of a beer or a conversation, you just mumble half-hearted words about nothing, and you insist that you are okay.

At home you work and then you don't. You sit down to read and then you don't, and then you cook and you don't really eat. You can't settle, and you don't settle, and it's only when your phone rings and her name appears on your screen, that you think you finally allow yourself to breathe again.

"Santana," you say, and even though it's worried, you do find your smile. When she breathes out _Brittany_, you drop the smile and you worry a little more. You can hear the weariness from the bathroom still clutching at her tone, and it pains you. Not only for fear that you might lose something here, but also, just for Santana.

She slides into silence and quiet breaths and you allow her for the moment to keep her counsel; you want her to talk to you, so much, yet for the moment it's enough to at least have an open connection. The deepest of your worries was that she wouldn't call at all; yet she has, and so you just breathe with her, and you wait for her to lead you slowly towards words.

Her first ones are crafted within the depth of a sigh and they tell you that everything is _all so much._ You hear the reality hounding her words and you're certain that for her, at least, the safety bubble really has burst. _"Three weeks ago," _she whispers, _"all I had to worry about was waiting this crap out; Quinn will be back at Yale by Christmas, the crazy train leaves town, and I can just get back to…"_

She stops her sentence and you ache for all of her empty spaces. You know she doesn't have anything to get back to; you know there's no college course waiting for her or any places designed for dreaming. "Back to what, San?" you ask, because all you can comprehend from her silence is that she wants to get back to nothing.

"_I don't know; existing?"_

It sounds the same to you, and again you ache.

"That doesn't sound much like living," you tell her.

"_It is what it is, Britt, and it's always been enough."_

"And now?"

If you could see her face you feel you know exactly the expression you'd be seeing. You can imagine so clearly the confused dip to her brow, or the way she might be lifting her eyes to the sky before she fashions an answer.

"_Now I don't know anything." _

She sighs deep again and you follow her cue and sigh along with her. You expect her not to say anymore and you're already scripting a response to her in your head; you're trying so hard to think of how to ease her just a little, just something to remind her that no matter how unsafe the world seems right now outside of your bubble, you're still right here.

She does speak though. She says your name, she says _Britt_, she halts and then she continues,_ "I do know," _she says, _"that I don't like dumping all of my crap onto you again; you didn't ask for any of this and-"_

You cut her off; "You didn't ask for any of this either, San."

"_Maybe, maybe not. Maybe karma's just finally biting back for all the bad I've done." _You want to tell her to stop it. You want to tell her about all of the wonderful things she's done, about how she's taught your heart to hear a language it'd only ever wondered at before, or about the smile she's leant to your lips or about the pep she's delivered to your step, yet you don't. You can't see to touch her and you can't hold to soothe her, and she speaks again before you've figured out how to make words work for you in the way that you need them to. _My abuela always said that 'sinful ways lead to darker days', Britt… Do you think she might be right?"_

Her tone is so downcast, yet you hear something like hope hidden deep within her question, and it leads you towards something you can say. You tell her _no, _you say it emphatically because you want her to hear you. "I think your abuela's wrong," you insist, and you mean it in so many different ways. "I know you Santana, I _know_ you, and I know your days aren't meant to be dark ones; maybe your abuela… maybe she's just really confused, or maybe she doesn't understand all of your awesomeness and she-"

She sighs _Britt _again, and you pause for breath. _"I just don't get…" _she says, and you hold back your own words to listen to hers. _"…what it is you see that you find so awesome."_

"That's easy, San; I see you."

And it is that easy. You really don't understand how everybody else doesn't see the same things that you see when you look at Santana. She is awesome, and you still mean that in the full awe-inspiring sense. Your words bring another pause to her now, and when she finally speaks again you hear the truth in her tone, _"I wish," _she whispers, _"that I could see you right now."_

"Yeah?"

"_Yeah. I think the only time I ever feel awesome is when you look at me, Britt."_

And your heart breaks. And your heart aches. And…

"_Tomorrow," _she says, not lingering on her confession, _"I'm not going to that bullshit with Quinn; it's a bit fucking late to be pledging myself to daddy, and I can't carry off 'hypocrite' half as well as they can." _Her tone has slid down to hard, and while you don't like hard, it's a happier place than hopeless, and you stay quiet while she continues. _"Everyone will be pissed at me though, so getting out is going to be an issue… Maybe… I could probably get out after lights out," _she says, and her voice loses it's edge as her words follow her thoughts. _"It'll be late, Britt; my dad will be away with Russell, so I'll only have to wait until my abuela's asleep, but,"_

"Okay," you say, and she laughs at you, just a little, and you smile, just a lot.

"_You don't even know what I was going to say."_

"I know, but it's still okay. I miss all of the awesomeness that's you, Santana; I'll see you whenever I can."

She doesn't laugh now, but you can sense her smile. You imagine the bashful curve to her lip and you envision the way she'll shake her head as if she can un-hear all of your words. _"Britt…" _she says, and she stretches it out over a whine, _"…stop doing that."_

Yet you hear nothing negative in her plea, and you vow to yourself to never stop doing that. You don't think you could stop doing that even if you tried.

You tell her sure though, you tell her you'll stop when she stops being so awesome.

And she whines some more, and you smile some more, and when you find your way forward and you say your soft _goodnights_, you think that perhaps you've managed to remind her just a little of what happiness might feel like, if she only learns to let go of the harsh.

…


	12. Santana 101

A/N - Hey :) Sorry about the slightly longer wait for the chapter, but Xmas and work. And I hate Glee. It made it harder to get things done in a timely fashion! Anyhow, thank you all again for the reading and reviewing and the pimping and the poster making and all that other good stuff which fills me with the good kind of glee. You guys rock. I hope you all enjoy the chapter. And if I don't post again before Xmas, I hope you all have a great one :D

...

You don't have the time to dwell on all of the thoughts which wish to place prominent in your mind today, for although you don't have a shooting schedule with Quinn, due to her little jaunt with her father, you do still have a mountain of work to get through and limited time to do it. This morning you spent ages in the studio filming part of a monologue which will be spliced with the footage you shoot throughout the week, and then shaped around the show; it's mostly you ruminating upon the importance of voting, but some of it's kind of funny, and aside from the repetitiveness of a thousand run-throughs, you did enjoy the process.

You just haven't had time to think much and you have a lot you wish to think about, and now that you're finally back in your office, you allow yourself time to wander your thoughts. It's not a personal office; you're not high-up enough yet to command your own space, even if you are the rising star on the network, and you share a room with Sam's desk, and both Mike and Tina's. You like it this way; you get to gossip amongst yourselves when none of you are working too hard on your ongoing projects, but the distance between your stations and the vague petitions that divide them, mean that you can also pretend at privacy when your workload is heavy. Today you're the only one in. Sam is with the crew of the show you're gate crashing with Quinn tomorrow; learning the ropes of how they work and planning out what kind of footage he's going to be able to collect, and Mike and Tina are out of the office, no doubt preparing for their flight to New York tonight.

It's quiet and you take a moment. Just to breathe.

Just to remember that at the end of this long day, somewhere in your not too distant future, you will be seeing Santana again. You've swapped a few text messages with her already today, but it's been nothing too intense, just easy greetings and a confirmation for tonight. She's going to come to your place just as soon as she can, she just doesn't think that the soon will be much earlier than midnight. You don't mind at all, you really don't, you just want to see her.

You can't shake the sad feel from yesterday. You may have ended your phone call with a smile last night, yet beneath the smile you could still sense her sadness, and beneath her sadness, you found your own.

You've always been an empathic person, you always found it easy to care, yet this what you feel for Santana is far beyond any normality that you know. You just want so bad to see her smile - you want _her_ to want to smile. And not just because her smile is the prettiest smile you've ever seen, but because when she smiles, you smile with her, and you so want to smile with her again.

You want to sit on the hood of her car, or walk hand in hand on the beach, or stand with her beneath the twinkling lights of a fairytale enclosed gazebo, and just smile.

Without worry or without woes, and without the doubts and fears.

You really just want her to feel free. And you have a lot to think about.

Thoughts so deep and consuming in their entirety, that you don't notice again when someone encroaches unexpected upon your space, you don't notice Rachel as she steps her first tentative steps inside the door of your office, and you only look up when you hear her awkwardly clearing her throat. Your assumption is that she's here looking for her team, and you tell her without saying any kind of polite hello that neither of them are in the office. You start to tell her that they're going to New York tonight, and then you remember that she knows that already; and you wonder why she's here.

You're looking at her with something like confused curiosity, and she takes another couple of uneasy steps towards your desk. "I was actually hoping to see you, Brittany," she begins, and your eyebrows drop down further. "I hope you don't mind, but I-"

"Why?"

Your question stops her feet from moving further for the moment, and she actually looks as if she'd rather turn around and walk back out. You do want to know what she has to say though, you are still curious as to why she was looking for you, and so you soften your mouth, just a little, and she smiles in return. She also walks the few remaining steps until she can take a seat in the chair opposite yours. "About yesterday," she begins again, "I didn't mean-"

And again you cut off her words. "I don't want to talk about yesterday, Rachel."

Yet she doesn't stop. "I wouldn't have been so hard before in the things I said about Santana, if I'd known that you and her were toge-"

"We're not together."

You have to interrupt her one more time. Not only do you not particularly want to talk to Rachel Berry about Santana right now, her words are also hurting you at a time you're easy to hurt. All you want is to be together with Santana; enunciating the fact that you're not only erases your smile; it only exacerbates the pain.

You try to hide it. You look away at your words and you glance at the window. You count clouds for what feels like a long minute, before Rachel starts speaking again.

Her voice is somewhat distant and it touches places far away, and you can't help but listen to her, even as you keep your gaze centred on the window. She's telling you how at first, she thought it was just something they cooked up to lure back Finn; "…It was after the _situation,_" she says, and you wonder vaguely what situation she's referring to. "I hear that sometimes the girls got with each other to tease the boys at parties, but until Finn took me along, I'd never been to that type of party. The boys certainly seemed to enjoy it, and Santana certainly seemed to have her fair share of the boys after; sometimes everyone else's share too…"

Your eyes have landed back on her now, and you narrow your gaze as her voice works its way back towards drama. You haven't felt so far as if she's grandstanding, and she does look somewhat apologetic as she changes the course of what she was going to say. "When I caught her with a girl, in private, I thought then, maybe… and then when I caught her with another girl; in fact, it's actually ridiculous the amount of times I've been destined to walk in on bathrooms where Santana is seducing her ladies. And, well; and now you."

You look at her again. She doesn't look away.

"Only, this time," she says, "I didn't walk in on something casual, did I Brittany?"

You hold your face blank, you don't even blink; "What makes you say that?"

"For one, Santana cared enough that you were there, to not try and kill me, and… I saw the way you were with each other…" Her eyes are looking at you so honestly and you know that she's not referring to the together she saw when she first burst into the bathroom, but after that; maybe the way you touched Santana's knee, or the way you asked Rachel to leave. She tilts her head to the side now as she studies you, just slightly, "…You really do care about her, don't you?"

The way she is asking is nothing like the way Quinn interrogated you, and although you're not enjoying this impromptu question and answer session, there's something in her voice which stops you from going too far on the defensive. You don't snarl out your words, you simply tell her that if she's about to offer you more bad tales about Santana, if she's going to warn you away, you really don't want to know.

It gives her pause for a moment; whether to change her chosen words or to just take a second's rest, you're not sure, but when she speaks again, it's not about Santana; "I know the impression I've probably given you, Brittany," she begins, and you wait for her to talk more about herself. "I forget sometimes that all the world isn't in fact a stage, and I know that I'm often too loud, and I know I have a tendency to turn everyday tales into some kind of fantastical drama, and…"

"Rachel, you're fine," you tell her, putting a stop to the possible influx of words. She looks at you as if she wants to believe you, and you offer her a small smile. You actually agree with everything she said, but after such an honest appraisal, you feel like you owe her something to say that it's not all bad. Your ears aren't ringing today from her volume, and you do feel as if she's here for something other than the drama involved.

You're just not sure what yet.

She leans forward in her chair now and she sends her own smile off to someplace wistful; "Regardless of everything," she tells you, "I do still care about her too. She really was my best friend Brittany; she just…" She looks away and she shrugs her shoulder, "She just changed so much. I know you don't want to hear it, but…"

You hold your hand up. You won't hear it.

"Did you ever think," you ask her, when she stops her words, "that maybe she made herself bad, to cover up how sad she is inside?"

"Of course I've thought that," she replies, her voice imploring, "and I tried to talk to her, more than once in fact, and I-"

"You sang at her."

She drops her eyes and you're sure it's because of the look you were giving her. You didn't mean to cut her off that time, but you remember Santana's side to the stories, and how Rachel had made her feel when she'd forced her to endure her song. You want to offer her something though, you feel like maybe…

You don't know for sure, but your instincts urge you to speak again and you open your mouth before you think of a reason not to. "Santana still cares about you too, you know?"

It brings her eyes back to you, and you continue; "She's been telling me a bit about how it used to be; she told me about the shows you put on, and what your dreams were…" You shrug even though she's looking at you like she wants you to go on. You don't know more to the story though, and so you ask; "What was she like, Rachel, back then?"

Because you really want to hear someone else say it, and finally someone does.

She smiles first, and it's one of her larger ones, "Back then, Brittany, she was _adorable_…"

And you smile just as large. You knew it.

And you keep smiling while Rachel tells you the tale of how wonderful everything was back then, before things had to change. She tells you all about Santana's early brilliance at everything she tried, and how she'd make them rehearse over and over and how she'd be so critical of everything, until in the end, everything was perfect. "Even my fathers used to say," she continues on, and you can hear in her voice how highly she values her fathers' opinions, "that Santana would one day end up directing the world. She wrote and produced our first two-man show when she was only 8 years old, Brittany; do you even know how ridiculous that is?"

You nod because you do know. You wrote your first script around the same time, but you didn't actually motivate yourself to attempt putting the show together until you were much older. It makes it hard to imagine Santana so driven when you've heard her talk so harshly of how her dreams don't matter so much anymore.

When Rachel speaks again, she echoes some of your own thoughts. She tells you that's what made it doubly hard to lose Santana's friendship; not just losing a dear friend, which was bad enough, but the way she then went on to mock and ridicule everything they had ever done together, just to please Quinn Fabray.

Your eyes slide hard on the name. You can't help it. You weren't expecting it.

It's like a tangled web, and sometimes when you're pulling on one string, you forget that there are a thousand other strings being tugged at the same time. You were enjoying tugging the one that told you tales of Santana when she was young…

You don't like the way that the tale has tugged back.

Rachel looks at you now, and you're sure she's noticing the way that your gaze has pinched and narrowed. She opens her mouth to speak, she glances down, she looks back up;

"Does Quinn know?" she asks, and it's shaded behind a whisper.

You shake your head and you sigh a soft sigh, you lift your shoulder up into a shrug to try and breeze by her questions. She doesn't stop though, her eyes are all concern and she leans a little further forward in her chair. "I can see," she says, "that that would be for the best."

You can't help but roll your eyes away from the obvious. "That's what everyone tells me," you say. It's just not something you fully understand. You say that now, you look at Rachel with a hint of pouted petulance and you mutter words which speak of no big deal, or not seeing the big deal. It's just Quinn.

"Just Quinn…" she echoes, finally leaning back in her chair. "…You've never tried to take something from her that she believes she owns, have you?"

"She doesn't own Santana."

"That's not what I said, Brittany; Quinn's had a lot of things taken from her over the years, some which were no one else's to take, and…" She pauses and she looks away again, and you watch her forehead crease over whatever she's thinking. "…And some things which were never hers to own. It's never been pretty, even when justified."

You don't ask for justification, you just tell her again; "She doesn't own Santana."

She shakes her head. She looks at you with the same sympathetic smile she'd bestowed upon you the first time you met her, the time when you'd spoken up in Santana's defence. "I know that, Brittany," she insists, and you swear it sounds like pity. "But maybe someone needs to remind Santana of that fact; I know I tried and it never got me anywhere."

Her eyes are wide and beseeching and you have to look away.

You feel like she's telling you about lost causes, or she's telling you a tale without a happy ending, and you refuse to believe in those. Not now, not with Santana.

It makes you examine the root cause of your distress; it makes you ask a question you've been aching to voice out loud for a long time; "What does Quinn have on Santana?" you ask, because Santana said herself that friendship in her world is based upon how much shit you know about each other, and which side is the safest pick to stay afloat.

Rachel stifles something which sounds like a snort, and you turn your eyes back to her. She shakes her head again and she looks a whole lot like she's sucking on a lemon. "Knowing how Quinn likes to work," she says, her shoulders tensing into a straight line, "I would imagine a whole lot of shame and an intense amount of guilt."

You show her clueless. You need an elaboration.

"She has a way of making your weaknesses work for her," she continues, "Santana's weakness seems to be girls in bathrooms…"

"But Quinn sleeps with girls, too," you stop her to say.

"Quinn has no shame."

It's confusing, and you don't follow all of the logic Rachel's laying down on you. You know your eyebrows are knitted tight together, yet you ask for more. "And the guilt?" you say, looking for that one other thing to make everything make sense.

It closes Rachel's eyes though. It slumps her shoulders back down and she won't meet your gaze for what seems like a long minute. "The guilt," she begins, her voice becoming brittle, "is something we all own a slice of. It really isn't my place to say though, Brittany. It's…"

She trails off and she doesn't look to speak on it further.

And you don't ask.

You feel like you're creeping through secrets here and you're actually kind of glad when she stops. You want to know; you want to know everything, yet… You can't shake the feeling that this isn't the way you're meant to find out. You enjoyed listening to her thoughts, and hearing about a young Santana from the Rachel she was once best friends with, really was a pleasure you weren't expecting, but when it comes to facts, you think it's probably best to stop there.

You think it's best if you ask Santana yourself.

…

Your evening, once home, is spent making long mental lists of all the things you do know and all of the things that you don't. It's like the web you thought of before, and Santana is in the middle, and there's all of these different threads leading to her, and away from her, and sometimes it's just so confusing.

You have no doubt when it comes to how she feels about you.

None.

Not through wishful thinking or misguided optimism, but because you see that look in her eyes when she's gazing at you, and it's a look you can recognise, because you wear one the same. She kisses you in a way which speaks of a forever that stretches both backwards and forwards, and she makes you pause upon thoughts like _fate _and _destiny,_ as if they really mean something beyond a simple collection of consonants and vowels.

You're certain of your feelings and that's not the problem. It's your thoughts you can't seem to bring any order to. Your brief meeting with Rachel today has presented you with a whole new loom full of spinning threads to try and catch a hold of, and that's what you're doing now.

You're couched on the sofa again, your hands are buried deep in Lord Tubbington's fur, and you're counting your way past midnight, waiting for Santana, trying to weave a pattern of sense through everything that you know.

You haven't told Santana yet that you saw Rachel. You are going to, you just didn't want to offer words that might spook her before she evens gets here. Not that you think she'll be particularly spooked this time; it was different before. You barely knew that you knew her then, and she was so scared for the things you may have found out, that it was bound to be spooky. Now you know each other and now you've shown her that you're not afraid to know her secrets… You think it'll be different.

You yawn now as you check the time once more, and you stretch yourself out a little further along the length of the couch as you settle down close to tired. It's been a long day, it's been an exhausting day, and if it wasn't for the thought of Santana's late night visit, you'd already be in bed. There's a constant buzz beneath the exhaustion though, and when your phone vibrates with a text message that says she'll be here in twenty, you allow the full flood of excitement to course through your veins.

It starts as a smile and it doesn't end until she knocks upon your door.

Even then it only grows larger. This is what you've waited all day for.

When you open the door, she isn't holding a bunch of wilted flowers to swoon you close to somewhere romantic, but she's dressed up in such a way that she had to know would make you beam brighter than sunshine. She's just…

Everything.

You grin so big as you take in her outfit; she's all in black, like some kind of super secret service agent, from the little beanie hat holding down her hair, to the boots on her feet and everything in between. The best bit though, the bit that has you grinning crazy at her like she's the best thing you've ever seen, is the two black stripes she's painted across her cheeks, like she's a commando on a midnight mission, and her mission was to get to you.

She says _hi _and you think you might need her to pick you up from the floor.

She smiles so wide at you that her cheeks emphasise the stripes some more, and you actually can't say a thing. You expected, even beneath your excitement, that she would be a little downcast when she got here, that you'd have to reluctantly edge her again inside of your protective bubble and ease her back down into a sense of security.

Yet she's just blown you away. Again.

The most you can do is hold out your hand to her, and for a moment she looks at you bashful, as if she can't quite comprehend the effect she seems to have on you.

"Sorry it's so late," she says, as you lead her over the threshold and shut the door behind her, "I started to think she'd never go to bed; it's like the older she gets, the less she sleeps." She carries on her aimless chatter as she shrugs herself out of the black leather jacket you remember admiring before. When she spies Lord Tubbington laid out on the sofa, she stops.

She looks at you, her eyes widening, and her lip curling up at the side, "You've got Godzilla in to chaperone us?" she asks, and she makes a huge fuss out of trying to find a space that she'll be able to sit in.

"He only likes it if you call him _God _for short_,_" you remind her, "and he'll move if you ask him nicely."

She looks at you and then she looks back to your cat. "No he won't. He kept me prisoner last time, remember?"

And you do, and you smile. You also lift Lord Tubbington up a little and pull him onto your lap as you sit down, and you laugh when she sits as far from you as possible. "He won't bite," you tell her.

"Not what his waistline's telling me; seriously, Britt, how much does he even weigh?"

You bring your hands down to cover his ears and you whisper the latest number you were told at your last visit to the vets. "He's big boned though," you intone seriously, "and he's mostly fur, so."

"So he could clothe a small town if you decided to skin him?"

"San?!"

"I'm just saying," she insists, laughing loudly. She wipes the faked out scowl from your face by leaning forward to stroke her hand lightly across Lord Tubbington's head, down across his back, until her hand lands gentle in your lap. You look at her and you take her hand. "He is enormous," she tells you again, once you've settled your fingers through hers, "but I guess he's kind of cute; for a cat."

"Cat's are super cute."

She looks at you, she rolls her eyes, "Sure, whatever, he's enormously cute."

When her eyes come back to you, you hold her gaze. You tug on her hand until she scoots a little closer, and even then you don't say anything, you just look.

She has the prettiest eyes, and when they're on you soft, the way she's gazing at you now, you don't ever want to look away. You say _hey_ and you can't help the way your nose scrunches up, because sometimes you still feel kind of silly with the way she makes you feel. Good silly. Like, the sound of a thousand monkeys playing trumpets on the moon; crazy silly.

She rolls her eyes and looks away again, yet nothing lessens your grin.

You lift her hand up, you touch it to your lips, and when she looks back, you just ask her how her day has been, as if you're not all caught up in this crazy spell of adoration. She takes her time, she pulls your hand up and mimics the way you touched it to your lips, and then she brings it back down to rest in her own lap.

And she looks at you, and she smiles, "My day," she says, full of pretend pomp and grandeur "went surprisingly well once I made it through the lectures… it was, hmm, a lot quieter than I thought it might be."

You look to her curious, because you feel as if she's spinning you a secret.

"Let's just say I bargained really well, Britt."

"You bargained?"

"Sure; I heard they had something I wanted, and I know I have something they want, so I snuck in a little quid pro quo." She looks so pleased herself, but you're still flailing about in confusion, and you tug on her hand with your silent request to be enlightened. "Well," she says, still smiling so sure of herself, "Russell has his little meet and greet in Fairfield the weekend and I'm told my favourite MTV reporter is going to be there to shoot footage of Quinn…" You're getting an idea of where this is going, and you squeeze your fingers tighter around hers to get her to make her reveal a little quicker. "They've been straining to get me to speak at one of these things for ages, and I keep blowing them off… Maybe I've agreed to speak this weekend. Maybe I'm actually in the good books for a change."

She wiggles her eyebrows but you're still stuck on her words.

"You're coming to Fairfield?" you ask, excited.

"Do you want me to?"

And you can't answer, because you're pushing Lord Tubbington down from your lap, and you're leaning the distance across the sofa, and you're kissing her with all of the hyped up want that you feel. You can't actually believe it; the thought of your weekend away, with it's six hour drive and it's room with a view of Quinn, wasn't exactly filling your thoughts with fondness, but now…

Now you're pulling the hat from her head, and your hands are in her hair, and you're holding your lips to her lips as if you'll never let go. It's not passion, it's not the same want which coils deep and waiting in the pit of your stomach, it's just _her. _She just… You can't even explain.

When you pull away, she looks bowled over and happy, and all of the things you ever want to see are painting the smiles upon her face. You ask her _really_, you make her confirm for you over and over, until the surety settles in your stomach. "Absolutely," she tells you once more, "I'd have to talk about those idiots sometime, and it does still feel like a punishment; but if I have to be an idiot, Brittany, who better to be an idiot for than you?"

You add it to your list of sweet things she's said to you, and you lean forward and plant another sweet kiss to her lips. When you pull away, she pulls you closer, and when you kiss her again you feel your lips aching to open and kiss her deeply. You keep it closer to chaste though; you still want more of her words before you lose yourself inside of the feeling.

She pouts when you pull away this time, but when you settle down in the space by her side and lean back against her, her arms go around you and you hear her sigh out in something that sounds like contentment.

For a moment it's all that you focus upon. You are perfectly contented, and you'd be quite fine to stay silent through the whole of this moment; yet your thoughts wander back over all she's just said, and you trip back with the memories to that time you first met her. She was meant to be speaking then too, and you know that you've never asked her why.

You lean your head up to the side now to look at her, and she's already gazing down your way.

"Why do you have to talk about Russell, though," you ask, "why's that your punishment?"

Her eyebrow twitches and you feel her arm tighten around you briefly, but aside from that, you wouldn't necessarily know you had touched upon a nerve. Her voice when she speaks, though, lets you know right away. It's bitter, and bare, and you shift your position so you can look at her clearly. "It's the republican mantra, Britt; tough on crime, tough on immigration… I'm like their perfect combo-deal, a two-for-two. They want me for the votes I'm worth. I think it's probably all I'm worth to them."

"I don't get it," you tell her, your face confused.

"They want me to get up on stage and tell my story." She looks down at you again and she shakes her head, "They want me to talk about my mom; about the night…"

She stops again. She looks away from you. "…The night she died," she continues, her eyes on the wall near your door. "Some undocumented smack-head robbed up a store, jacked a car, and went heavy on the gas. I think he made it half a block before he hit my mom."

You watch her shrug her shoulders and you tug gently on her hand.

"It's alright Britt," she says, still without looking at you, "Russell would whore out his own daughter if he thought it meant saving votes; whoring out my unhappiness is actually pretty low scale for one of his schemes."

She says it like it's nothing, but you remember. You remember the first convention and you remember how she went missing so she didn't speak on the Saturday, and maybe it makes sense now. Maybe drinking and losing yourself in that kind of oblivion makes perfect sense when faced with the other kind.

You pull on her hand this time until she does look back your way, and you offer her the honesty in the depth of your stare. "You don't have to do it San," you say, "really you don't."

"I know, but…"

Her words fade out and a sigh takes their place, and she shifts a little in her seat. You shift with her, and you pull yourself up, and you turn so that you're facing her instead of away from her. "But what?" You ask, taking her hand again.

You follow her eyes down to your fingers and back up again, and when she meets your gaze her lips lift just a little. "Maybe, I don't know, maybe I need to start figuring some stuff out," she tells you, her eyebrows dipping, "and maybe it's going to be easier to do that, if I can keep my abuela off of my back for a while. This keeps her off of my back."

She breathes out deep after her words and you chance a smile at her. "And she won't be sending you off to Puerto-fucking-Rico," you tell her when she smiles back at you, because it's important to remember the good stuff. It's also important to remind her that ultimately she makes her own decisions.

She screws up her nose at your words though, and you look at her as if to ask _what?_

"I don't think I ever heard you say _fuck _before, Britt."

You wiggle your eyebrows, you give her your grin, "That's because I like to save all of my fucks for when they really mean something."

You watch as she bites quick at her lip, you see as the words register in her mind.

"Right," she says, her voice edging towards wary. When she looks away from you and you see her take in a deep breath, you can't help but tease her.

"Everyone says _fuck, _San, it's no big deal. _Fuck… _see?" You drop your voice and you say it once more, a long drawn out fuck that looks like it might bring the tears to her eyes.

"Okay, okay," she interrupts, waving the hand you're not holding in front of her face, "you're an expert at fucki-" she stops herself and her eyes widen and she stumbles over her retreat, "I mean, fuck, you're an expert at saying fuck…"

You laugh because there's no way not to. "Sometimes," you say, "I've been known to say crap and shit, too, and even…" you lean in close and tease the air by her ear, "…when a certain situation demands it, I've been known to bring out the really dirty _C_ word."

You nod seriously and she doesn't look as if she has a single clue what to do with herself.

It's not a word you drop into everyday use, but when certain situations demand it…

The thought catches your bottom lip between your teeth as you follow it through, and when you look back up at her, you're sure you can feel the tips of your ears burning. You decide it's probably best not to tell her about the situations when you combine the _fucks _with the really dirty _C _word, because even if she could take the innuendo, you're not sure that you could survive it without landing in her lap and asking to demonstrate.

She coughs a little, maybe clearing away mental demonstrations of her own, and she squeaks out a question which asks how _your_ day was. It's like a 180 turn on where you were just moments ago, and you pause long and hard as you adjust to the new parameters.

Because your day is something you've been waiting to mention, but now that the time has come when she's asking for mention, you're not so sure you want to talk about it anymore. "My day," you say, shifting position and stalling for time. You move your feet up so you can cross your legs on the sofa, and once you find rest, you again lean across and claim back her hand. "Well, don't freak out on me or anything, but… Rachel came to see me today."

"Rachel Berry?" Her eyes are wide, and you nod your head _yes_. "Can I freak out a little?"

"Sure, but it's gonna be kind of hard to take you seriously with that paint on your face."

She lifts her hand to her cheek as if she'd forgotten about the paint, and it takes the chance of a scowl and fashions it back into more of a smile.

"So what stories did she tell you today, Britt?" she asks, her gaze trying to garner disinterested, "My favourite is still the one where we packed her up in that box and tried to ship her back to Israel."

You're sure that you're eyes are wide now too. "You did that?"

"Kind of. It was a shipping container, not a box, and with the set of lungs she has on her, it was never going to work."

"San…"

"What?"

You give her a look which you hope she knows means you're not impressed, and she only smiles higher. "Fine, I'm kidding; I booked the container, but we couldn't convince her to get in. Better?"

You roll your eyes away and you fix on Lord Tubbington as he lounges on the floor near your feet. You take your hand back from hers and you cross your arms across your chest. "Actually," you say, the smallest amount of snipe in your voice, "she mostly just told me what a good friend you used to be…"

"Britt…"

"And about how talented you were, and how her dads' said that if you wanted, you could be anything-"

"I get it okay," she snaps, and there's a whole lot of something slipping into her voice. "Did she sing to you next about what a fucked up tragedy it all is, or did she offer you a phone number for her favourite support group?" You don't say anything, and she continues right on, "Hell, if she gave you the digits for The Trevor Project and offered to pray the gay _into_ me, then you're the proud recipient of the full on Berry experience. Told you she has an agenda Brittany; her whole fucking world shits out rainbows, and she won't be happy until I'm golfing on Sundays, and holding her hand at some fagged up hippy convention, where she finally gets crowned Queen of the Hags."

She stops.

You start.

"Maybe she just cares about you; people are allowed to care about you San."

"Yeah, well maybe I like it better when they don't."

She looks at you, you look at her, and you look away.

"I'm getting a drink," you say, and you pull yourself up from the couch, you step over Lord Tubbington, and you somewhat storm off in the direction of the kitchen.

…

You get as far as taking a glass from the cupboard, you turn on the tap, you wait while the water runs somewhere close to cold, and then you freeze on all of your thoughts. You don't know how long you stand there, or even which order your thoughts are coming to you, but it feels in a way like you stand there forever. You've heard Santana spit out venom before, you've just never been the targeted recipient. Not quite like this, not with the look she had in her eye when she told you how she likes it better. It was hard and it was mean, and no amount of stripes painted across her cheeks could soften her intention.

And you're frozen - stuck - because it feels like forever, and you don't know how to not care about her, even if it was the only wish she ever had and you were the only one who could ever grant it.

You think perhaps you sigh. You think you sigh a lot.

You're not expecting her to come up behind you. In honesty, you're half expecting her to let herself out of your front door and go home; to her nothing and the no one she's determined to pretend she wants. She says your name though, and you freeze again inside of your frozen moment.

It's only when she arrives at the space by your side and touches your elbow, that you move. You shake your head, you turn off the tap, and you move to face her. You step back though, you fold your arms across your chest again and you put the two footsteps between you.

"Your cat told me I should come and apologise," she says when your eyes meet hers, but you don't smile back at her. You raise your eyebrow, you ask for something more.

"I'm sorry, okay?"

But that's not working either.

You watch her eyes drop, and her forehead crease, and when she takes a tentative step forward, you take a larger one back. "That was mean, Santana," you say, and her gaze flits back to yours.

"I know, I…" She stops and you sigh. "I didn't mean to snap at you Britt, but you don't understand; this is all really hard, and…"

She trails off again and you drop your arms down from your chest. "So talk to me," you tell her, "help me to understand."

She closes her eyes, she holds her mouth in a tight line, and you can see the twitch of the muscle working at the corner of her jaw as it counts out the beats of her tension.

You take your own tentative step forward, you gain back her eyes, and again you ask her to just talk to you_._

"I'm not so good at talking about it," she whispers, and you step once more to hear her.

When she reaches out a hand, you give her your own, and you tell her that you'll take it slowly.

…

You make tea while she uses the bathroom, and when you return to the sofa, she's tucked herself back into the corner, and Lord Tubbington is now sprawled across her lap and purring loudly. You raise your eyebrow as if to ask, and she tells you he attacked her, and she had to subdue him with tummy tickles or she was afraid he really was going to eat her.

You let it stand. You smile softly at her, you put the mugs on the coffee table, and you take the place in the opposite corner. You don't want to sit too close and silence her, and she has Lord T on her lap; you know how good he is at soothing when your own thoughts are running wild.

For a while she keeps her quiet. Her eyes are on your cat and her hand is making patterns in his fur, and you just sit and watch and wait for her to be ready.

She clears her throat, once and then twice, and finally she looks at you.

"I never talk about all this," she says, and you just smile some more soft encouragement. When she starts again, when she begins with the words _I used to be happy_, you forget for a long time to smile.

She tells you everything. Or the everything that existed for her when she was just a girl, living high up in Beverly Hills, dreaming dreams that were supported by both _Mami _and _Papi_. She tells you again how her family were close to the Berry's, and she insists, absolutely insists, that she thought her parents, her mom _and_ her dad, were the best kind of parents any girl could have; "Seriously, Britt," she says to you, "I could believe my mom back then when she spoke about falling in love; she was so happy, we were all so happy."

And you would smile if she was smiling, but her eyes are already sparkling, and you know it's hurting her to remember so starkly all of the important things that she's lost. "When my abuelo died," she continues, "I didn't even think about it, you know? He was just an old guy in Puerto Rico, who I saw sometimes at Christmas." She tells you that of course her dad was sad, and when he first insisted that your abuela come to The States to live with you all, she didn't think too much of it. "My dad changed though," she says, and she bites at her lip, "it was like, he went from being this awesome guy in love with my mom, to being this pandering asshole who bent over backwards to give my abuela everything she wanted."

You ask what she wanted.

"Beyond hating on everything, I don't really know," she says, her voice solemn. "She disapproved of the way we did pretty much anything. I know she hated my mom, and our family friendship with Rachel's folks was sneered upon quite quickly."

"But why?" you question, when she pauses for breath, "Aren't Rachel's dads nice?"

"They're _gay_ Britt; like pink-neon-flashing lights, capital G gay, and that to abuela is like a red rag to bull. A really pious and pissed off bull, that doesn't take no for an answer."

You say _oh. _You probably should have guessed at something like that.

You're not really surprised when she tells you that the arguments started soon after. That her mom was just as stubborn as her abuela, and when things got really tough, and really bad, she made the decision to walk away. "I was glad," she insists to you. "Nearly two years I had to live with her and I was just so glad to be out." She tells you how she didn't even care that she was leaving her dad behind, "He started working for Russell by then, and I never saw him much anyway. The only time he was home, it seemed like he was shouting… I was glad to get out."

She pauses and leans forward to pick up her tea. When Lord Tubbington shifts in her lap, she lays a hand back down as if to insist that he stay. "Stroke him under the chin," you tell her, "he can't resist."

She smiles soft at your words and she uses her free hand to do as instructed. "He likes that, huh?" she says when he purrs again, and you smile back and nod your _yes._

You take a drink of your own tea while you wait for her to ready herself for whatever else it is she wants to share with you. You're sure she's not done, you're sure that her need to hold onto your cat was because she still has stuff to say and she still needs somewhere to find a little comfort while she speaks it. You wish you could go to her, you wish you could cross the space of the sofa again and find a place for her in your arms, but you get that she needs the distance to find her words. You've been here with her before, and when it was you speaking your way through the hard memories, she had left you your distance too.

The tale she picks up when she starts speaking again is the one where she lived in a house below that hill where she first started revealing all of her secrets to you. She says it was a shock going from all that she'd had, to living so lowly, but her mom insisted they go it alone and not take anything with them, and it hadn't taken long to adjust; "I made friends there," she tells you, "or I made one good friend, but we were happy. My mom eventually started singing again, I think she was in talks with Leroy to get back into it professionally or something, and it was all going great…"

"How come you didn't see Rachel anymore?" you ask, because if her mom still saw the Berry's then…

"Are you kidding me?" she says, "I went from being a little Prima Donna, doing shows in her home fucking theatre, to living in Nowhere's-Ville with last season's clothes. I couldn't take the shame, Britt. Even back then, Rachel had one hell of a nose for a charity case."

You look at her and she rolls her eyes, "It was just easier to move on, okay?"

You say _okay_ and you smile her way. She moves again to put her empty cup back on the table, and when she shifts back, she immediately searches out that place beneath Lord Tubbington's chin. You wait through her silence, and you finish your own tea, and when she looks at you again, you know it's getting to the place where she doesn't want to go.

Her eyes won't rest, and they move from you, to the cat, to the floor, to the door.

"Do you know the first thing my abuela said to me, when she saw me at the funeral?" she eventually asks, her voice breaking over the words, and you don't need to inquire what funeral she's referring to. You keep your face blank even though she's not looking at you, and you wait. "She told me that divorce is an unforgivable sin, and she told me that God never forgets, and he always punishes."

Her hand stops moving through your cat's fur, and her eyes come back to you, dark and heavy; "At my mom's fucking funeral, Britt… Like, if I didn't know already exactly what I was going back to, I figured it out right then. And I knew, you know, there was no fucking way I could survive that if I didn't change who I was." Her eyes are wide as if she's imploring you to understand, as if she's somehow asking for you to grant her an absolution that's not yours to give. "I meant what I said before," she whispers, and you ache so much for what she's going to say, "I buried myself that day too, Brittany, I didn't know what else to do, and…"

She closes her eyes again, and you're not close enough to catch the one silent tear that squeezes itself out from between her eyelids. You watch it though, you watch it slide through the paint that she made to come see you, and you watch it cross the lips that you only wish you could kiss better. When it drops from her chin and falls down onto Lord Tubbington, you have to move. You can't sit here and watch her do this.

You can't not go to her.

You put your cup down and you move to her side, yet her hands comes up and she holds you back. You feel like she has something left to say still, and if she lets you comfort her now, she won't be able to get it out.

You hold yourself still, you don't touch her.

"I know," she says, her voice rasping harsh against her throat, "that Berry thinks it's all about Quinn, but it's not. Sometimes it's just easier to hate, than to… than _anything_." She shakes her head one more time, and she turns her face to look at you, "The beauty of it all though, Britt, is that the person I ended up hating the most, is _me_."

And you go to her.

Nothing and no one could stop you in this moment, and when she holds her hand up again, you push past it and you hold her, and when she shakes you hold her harder, and you swear you will never let go, not if all the forces in the world join together to prise you away from her, you will not let go.

You speak words into her ears, and you stroke the hair back from her face, and you call her _honey_ and you call her _sweetheart _and you promise her, you _promise_ that somehow you're going to make this all better. And still she shakes, and still she clings to you.

And still you don't let go.

…

She goes to the bathroom again once she's cried out her tears, and while she's away from the room, you wipe away the sneaky few that have found their way to your eyes. It's just… She's so sad. And you knew she was sad, you knew from the first time you met her that their was some kind of deep-secret sadness shrouded about her shoulders, but she's _so_ sad, and you don't know what to do with that.

You're Brittany S Pierce; you make web shows about your cat. And you're always smiling and you're always bouncing about from one thing to the next and…

She's so sad it hurts you.

And you don't think web shows based around your cat are going to help any with that. It leaves you lost for what to do; you can't even think what to say to her when she comes back into the room. Her eyes are puffy and red, and she's wiped the paint from her cheeks to leave them naked, and when her gaze finally falls upon you, you forget all about how lost you feel.

She's more lost, and you simply hold out your hand for her to find.

She steps back to the sofa, and she just stands there for a moment, looking down at your outstretched offering, before bringing her eyes back up to you, "It's cool, Britt," she says, shrugging her shoulders as if she can shrug away everything she's just shown you. "I get by, right?"

"Yeah, you do," you agree, and you smile soft when she touches her fingertips to yours, "maybe it's time you did more than get by, though."

You enclose your hand around hers and you pull her back down to sit by your side. She gives easily, and although she sighs once she gets there, she doesn't take her hand away and she lets you gently caress her skin while she finds and forms an answer.

"I think you're probably right," she eventually tells you, and she takes another of those deep breaths in and slowly out. "I've got a lot to change."

She lifts her head slightly and looks towards you, and you tell her not too much. "I like the way you are, San. When you're with me…"

Your words drift away and you smile softly at her, and she smiles back at you, small and unsure. "That's who I want to be all of the time," she says.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think so… I mean," she brings her other hand to your lap, and she taps a nervous rhythm out with the pads of her fingertips, "it's going to take some time Britt; I've got a whole lot of stuff I need to work out and…"

You're small smile has become a large smile.

She looks at your lips and she stops talking for a moment. "What?" she asks, when you don't stop smiling.

And you don't know quite what to say, because you just sat here, in this place of such sadness, and you listened to Santana make a plan for a future. A tentative plan. A small forward motion. And it's like the smallest wisp of smoke has drifted up from that fire inside, and all you can think is that her fire is burning. That all of the tears, rather than dousing her flame, have somehow made her realise that she still has something to fight for; that there's a life to be lived better than all that she's settled for, and she has so much more than nothing.

When she asks you _Britt_ in that adorably cute way she has of dragging your name out like she wants to hold it on her tongue, you smile more and you tell her exactly what the issue is, "I think I need to kiss you."

She pauses, her eyes soften, and her own smile shifts from unsure to sure. "You need to, huh?" she asks, and you delight at the tease she puts into her tone. You nod as seriously as you can possibly manage, and she tells you that if you _need _to, well; "I probably shouldn't stop you."

"You really probably shouldn't."

You shift in your seat until you're facing her fully, and you lean the sweetest kiss you've ever given onto the softness of her lips. When you pull back she says _Brittany_, and you just smile and nod your head.

Because for a kiss so small, it was a kiss so important, and you meant everything it said.

When she moves to lay back against the cushions of the couch, you follow her direction and she pulls you down to lay by her side. You're facing her, and she's facing you, and when she dips her lips forward for another sweet kiss, there's something in the air which renders you bashful and makes your eyes move away. You feel like…

You think you feel like they say a teenager feels when they first fall in love. You can feel the butterflies in your tummy from the depth of her gaze, and all you want to do is to stay here, within the warmth of the cushions and the couch, and make out with her on the sofa.

And you do.

You whisper _hey_ and she tells you _hi_, and when she says she needs to kiss you, you don't tease out her needs, you simply start kissing her and you forget to stop.

You stay in that place and you trace every inch of her mouth with your tongue; you learn each dipped groove on her lips and you learn how hard she starts to breath when you run just the tip of your tongue around the shell of her ear. You think you probably say her name in a thousand different ways between each perfectly placed kiss, and for each one you give her she gives you two back in return.

You don't know when you stop kissing.

You're lips are so swollen and tingling from the taste of her skin, that even now, just lying here staring into the deep brown of her eyes, you could still be kissing somehow and you wouldn't even know it. All of her touches feel like kisses to you anyway, and you know you're still touching. She has one arm under and around you and the other is trailing her hand up and down your arm. Just the barest of touches with the very tips of her fingers, but it still feels like a kiss.

When you yawn, she pauses, and you jog your arm slightly to make her continue.

"It's really late, Britt," she whispers, and you don't want to know.

Yet you do look across at the clock on the wall, you register the time at somewhere close to 4am, and you groan just a little. You have one hell of a long day tomorrow, and your alarm is set to go off in just over three hours. She starts to shift though, and you fix her with your pout.

"Come on," she says, rolling her eyes and smiling, "you're sleepy. I should get going soon, anyway."

She lifts herself up and she brings you with her, and the thought of going to the door now and sending her on her way is nothing you want to consider. She surprises you with her words though, she stops you from forming an even larger pout; "I want to put you to bed," she says softly, dipping her eyes on the shy.

"You don't need to, San."

"I know, but I do need to kiss you goodnight, and this way I can at least pretend…"

She doesn't finish the thought, but you don't need her to. You know what she wants to pretend, because you want to pretend the same. You want her to be laying you down in your bed and placing her lips to yours, because you're going to bed together.

You tell her to wait and you go to the bathroom. You brush and you floss and you pull your hair back into a braid so it doesn't get tangled in the night. And then you go back to collect her. It's a silent moment, because you've never taken her to your room before. She's been in your spare room - she's _slept _with you in your spare room - but she's not been in here yet.

When you turn on the light she takes her time to run her gaze over all your pictures and the posters you have hanging on the walls. You have a couple of promo ones for Fondue for Two and you have a few cool looking band ones you'd brought home from work. There's also the picture board your mom made for you when you left home, full of photos of you growing up and your family and Sam, and it's that which her eyes seem to have landed and now settled upon.

You tell her you'll show her another time, and when you turn on the lamp by your bedside, you ask her to get the light.

"I like your room," she tells you, walking to stand by the bed while you climb inside the covers.

"Yeah? What's yours like?"

She considers for a moment before informing you that it's _dark and broody, _and you have to smile at her choice of words. "Dark and broody is _sexy_, San," you remind her, and she smiles right along with you.

When you've pulled the covers up and settled down into your pillow, she starts to look just a little awkward, as if she's only thought her plan through up to this moment and she's not sure now what to do. You pat the space by your side and you tell her to sit.

And then there's silence.

You trace her gaze with your own and you delight in all that you find there.

"I'll call you tomorrow, yeah?" she says, and you scrunch up your nose.

She leans forward and kisses you there. She pulls back and smiles and then she leans forward and kisses the space by your left eye and then the space by your right. When she touches her lips to your lips, she pauses and she stays and you don't want her to go.

"San," you say quietly, when she lifts her lips away.

"Uh-huh?"

"Will you stay until I fall asleep?"

She looks at you curious, her head tilting to the side, "You want me to?"

"I just want to pretend," you say, and her smile tells you she gets it.

She goes to take off her boots to climb on your bed, and you tell her not to worry; you know you're going to fall asleep quickly, and it's not a sin in your home to have shoes on the furniture. You think actually, you don't have any sins in your home.

When she settles in behind you and she wraps her arm across you, and she brings you in close; you do pretend and you do imagine that this is the start of your night together, and not the end of it. She kisses the space behind your braid at the back of your neck, and you breath deep on your way down to sleep as she starts the caress of her fingertips against your arm again. It's hypnotic and she's hypnotic, and the last thing you remember before succumbing to slumber, aside from feeling of safety in her arms, are the words she whispers after she kisses you goodnight.

"This won't always be pretend, Britt," she says, and it sounds just like a dream that you're dreaming together.

…


	13. Study Notes

A/N: So I didn't make Christmas, but I've scraped by in time before the end of the year, and I wanted to wish you all an awesome new one. Thanks as always for reading along and reviewing and doing those things you do :D Happy New Year!

...

Thursday morning, you float through the air with the greatest of ease. Your feet feel as though they haven't touched the floor for hours, and the smile hasn't once dipped from your lips since the moment you first awoke. Santana was no longer there, holding you tight, but you could still feel her all around you. The taste of her skin still licked at your lips, and the memory of her touch, calming you as you slipped away to sleep, comforted you then and it comforts you now.

There was also that text message. The one that still has you staring goofy into space while the world carries on at its own pace around you. It was nothing elaborate, nothing long and wordy or overblown with affection. Just; _You're beautiful. _

Just that.

The time had logged at 5:13am, and in your minds eye, you see her.

You imagine her holding you long after you succumbed to sleep, and you imagine her slowly sliding herself away from you with the silent purpose not to wake you; and then you imagine her stopping. You imagine her looking at you the way she looks at you, the look that makes you feel so treasured…

And she thinks you're _beautiful_.

Not hot, or smokin', or designated delicious - but beautiful.

She makes you feel beautiful, and you float through your early morning the way that only beauty can. Your touch is tactile as you greet your fellow MTV employees, and the smile you give Sam when you find him in your shared office space, is perhaps bigger than any smile you've ever given him before. It's a beautiful smile, and he notices right away.

He smirks a grin in your direction, he pulls himself up from the perch on his desk where he'd been leaning over his laptop, and he approaches you with words about going to the ballgame.

When he reaches you he holds out his fist for you to find in a bump, and he shoots you the kind of wink you're sure is meant to be reserved for the primitive space of the boys' locker rooms; "Santana finally decided she's allowed to like you, then?" he says, his fist still held out before him un-bumped.

You shake your head but you don't stop smiling. "Really, Sam?" you ask exasperated, "How many times do I have to tell you, we're _just _friends?"

"A whole lot more if you expect me to believe you." He nudges his hanging fist against your shoulder, and his eyes travel fast through a quick once over, "You're practically glowing, Britt" he tells you, nudging you again, "either you've developed some kind of mutant superpower that lights you up like Christmas, or you got all kinds of lucky last night."

You think through the options and the answer is easy. You did get all kinds of lucky last night; just not in the way that Sam is imagining. You think it's like that flower you heard of that only blooms so very rare that when it does give place to its petals, it's a moment of magic that touches upon everyone who stands to bear witness. You feel like last night you got to witness something pretty special. Beyond the sadness and the distant depth of dark you know still awaits, you saw a rare flower turn towards the sun and dare to share its bloom.

And you think that she's beautiful too. So much more beautiful than she realises.

You think, in fact, she's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

It stops the smile from slipping from your face even as you shake your head at Sam again; "Friends can get lucky without going to the ballgame," you tell him, and you shrug your shoulder and you imp up your grin. "I just like hanging out with her, that's all."

He shakes his head back at you now, his eyes as soft and warm as his smile, "You've got it so bad," he says, and you shrug your shoulder again.

"There's nothing bad about it. And I haven't got it yet."

But you kind of have, you kind of think, and it makes you light up like Christmas.

You expect him to tease you to expand upon the _yet, _but his eyes drift past you and his smile changes from one of lifelong friendship to one of casual contemplation. "Quinn," he says, his eyes flicking quick to the watch on his wrist, "are you early or am I late?"

"Neither," you hear her say as you stall on turning, "I'm right on time, and you're both here."

Her eyes are on you and her smile is fixed in place when you do face her, and you say her name and you say hello, and she steps in with two air kisses, either side of your face.

"Brittany," she says, the familiar sing-song lilt curling close around her tone, "I missed you yesterday; you really should've come for the ride along, it was certainly something to see."

She fills you in when you ask about the night she had last night; how she danced up a storm with daddy, and how her dress was the best and how all of the other little limpets had clung to her side all night, just wishing to bathe in the glows of her success.

She laughs along as she tells her tale, and you sense the slight of self-mocking as she goes on and on about the grandeur of the occasion. "I actually wonder how you manage to do it," she asks, and you lift your brow in question. "Let everyone just _love you _the way that you do," she continues, "don't you ever just want to smack those smiles of adoration right from peoples' faces?"

Your eyes are wide and it makes her laugh once again. "I'm joking; I just," she rolls her eyes and clips her smile tight again, "sometimes it's just so _arduous _being Daddy's only daughter."

If arduous means crappy, then you imagine she's telling the truth. Russell Fabray is one of life's giant douche-bags; you find it _arduous _enough being in the same room as him. Being stuck as his daughter is probably the crappiest thing you can imagine.

You soften the shock in your stare and you switch it to something like sympathy; "My sister takes the load off," you tell her, starting to smile again. "I let her answer my fan mail sometimes; she has better penmanship than me anyway, so…"

She accepts your answer about dealing with the adoration and you slide right past the topic of being her daddy's daughter. Sam's interruption seals the deal; "As awesome as both your egos are, we should probably get moving some time soon; we're expected on set by midday, and," he shakes his wrist in your direction, "that time is nearly now."

It instantly transforms all talk of the personal into talk of things professional, and you tie your mind tight to the new topic at hand as you discuss the length of the day ahead of you. It's your first guest slot on another show, and while you're full of the excitement and the buzz of a brand new challenge, there's also a small slice of nerves tensing your tummy and beating your heart just a little bit faster.

You're Brittany S Pierce; and you still only make a show based on dipping cheese and doting on your cat. And sure, that's always seemed like a winner to you, but… Today you're entering someone else's domain and you're famous for making a show about your cat.

It makes your grin sit a little slanted on your face. It makes your voice a little tight as you answer all of Quinn's many queries. "Well," she says, as Sam pulls the van into the studio parking lot, "I guess it's time to shake off the shackles and step out of the comfort zone…"

You hear the nerves in her voice and again your eyes are sympathetic to her cause.

"It'll be fine," you tell her, nodding your head as a statement of insistence, "we both look good in clothes and we both love music, so…"

It's Sam's laughter that breaks the tension in the van, "You're both going to be great," he says, turning the engine to off, "_FashionistarZ _won't even know what's hit them."

He smiles that giant Sam smile in your direction, and you just try and focus on the fact that feeling a little sick isn't the same as being a little sick.

…

Your momentary lack of confidence was entirely misplaced.

So entirely in fact, that you feel a little silly now for even entertaining all of your doubts. Almost as soon as you had arrived on the unfamiliar set, people had wanted to say hello. A lot.

"Brittany S Pierce!" the female director had welcomed you to the floor with, "Everyone, look who we have on set today; it's Brittany Pierce!"

You had the good grace to cringe a little beneath your grin as a multitude of new faces had sought to make your acquaintance, but more than that you had been glad; your peers appreciate your show. It has you smiling through every introduction, and both Sam and Quinn are welcomed into the fold just as easily as you are. It makes you glad again to work for MTV, with its giant assorted family of colleagues just waiting to be friends, and it also sharpens your approach to the day ahead. You're determined to nail this. You want to win on Friday night, even if you will be halfway to Fairfield when the new show gets to air, and you get the impression, from the look you catch in Quinn's eye, that she's ready to win this thing too.

The show you're guesting on is the perfect platform to connect to your targeted audience, and your hopes for success aren't completely unfounded. You know that Rachel and her team are at this very moment kicking it up in New York, but it doesn't matter; Quinn and you are going to be FashionistarZ for the day, and aside from your show, this is the one that's currently riding high on the MTV ratings list. It's only a fledgling show and it's still in its early days of invigorating the viewing public, but they are invigorated, and it's that sense of excitement you're hoping to capitalise upon today.

The format is pretty simple. They take one up and coming fashion designer and pair them with an up and coming new band, and together they combine to put on a fashion show to some rocking live music, and everyone leaves satisfied. Today you and Quinn will be modelling the designs and walking the catwalk. Sam is there to catch everything that happens behind the scenes, and you've been given access to everyone on set.

It's everything fun and you're having a blast.

Quinn has taken the idea of shaking off her shackles quite seriously, and you forget for the majority of the time just how many hours you've spent trying to understand her many reasons or her rhymes. You just go with her flow, and you find yourself gelling together nicely; she laughs and she jokes - with you and the people around you - she entertains for the camera and she shoots smiles in all directions…

Some of the time you stand back and wonder.

Because there's something quite beautiful about her too when she really smiles, and you have to wonder why she's always covering it up with her many different costumes. When she's like this, you think it would be easy to call her a friend, and you imagine this is the Quinn who Santana talks of, when she talks about the person who isn't all bad.

It's another of those webbed designs your mind keeps getting caught in, yet your connection to Quinn isn't strong enough for you to want to follow the tangles. You just accept her for who she is today, and when she smiles easy at you, you smile easily back at her.

"This is the _best_ fun," she tells you, squeezing her way into yet another daring design of the featured artist, and you have to agree that all things considered, it actually is.

The clothes are all whacky and whimsical and the band is playing the kind of music that fills the room full of high energy, and you're really beginning to look forward to tonight. Your final outfits have been decided upon, the set list for the music has been played into place, and all you have to do between now and production time, is chill a little backstage and attempt a bite to eat.

When your phone rings, you glance down, you sigh around your sandwich, and you excuse yourself from the room. "My mom," you explain to Sam and to Quinn, "my sister's been unwell, and…"

Sam's head tilts and his eyes crease with concern, "Is she…"

"She's fine," you tell him quick. "I'm sure it's nothing more than a runny nose, but you know how much mom likes to worry."

You smile and you shrug and he nods his solemn agreement; "That she does," he releases you with, and you slide yourself out of the room.

…

You miss the call.

You're too busy excusing yourself and trying to find somewhere quiet to speak to answer the short burst of your ringtone, but you manage to find an empty corner and you call her straight back.

Not your mom. Your sister has a cold, sure, but your mom would never bother you with something so trivial, even if she is a worrier. No, it was Santana calling, and you return her call with that floaty feeling still tickling your feet and the smile still sticking to the lift of your lips.

She says _BrittBritt_ when she answers, and it's cute, and it's excitable, and you're so happy to hear her voice, that you take a moment just to bask before you find a reply.

"Santana," you finally say, and it sounds as good as you feel. "How _are_ you?"

Because you really do want to know. You want to know if her smile is outshining all of her sadness, and if the feeling you found inside of her last night is still firing her up in the direction of a future. "_I_," she says, grandstanding her announcement, "_am absolutely fine; that's not what I'm calling for though. I want to know how _you_ are?_"

"Well, I'm fine too," you tell her, and you laugh when she jokes that you're both _so fine. _"We are," you agree, nodding sagely along to the truth in her words, "though I think you might be the finest."

She laughs, or she snorts, or she makes some sound ridiculous, "_No way!_" she remarks, her tone lifting even lighter, "_You're the finest Britt; like, you're the finest of the fine."_

"The finest of the fine?"

"_Uh-huh. If you looked up fine in the dictionary, there'd be a picture of you there."_

"Maybe," you say, teasing out the pleasure within all of her words. "I'm betting it'd be below your picture though. And…" you drawl out, expanding your meaning, "…you'd be there for the double definition; first for how fine you look, and secondly, for the fine you ought to get charged for looking so fine in the first place."

She laughs again, and you envision her dimples marking out her delight. _"I'm not going to win this one, am I?"_

You tell her _no,_ you tell her to accept your words and take her title of the finest.

"_Fine,"_ she eventually says, her tone touching exasperated, _"If there's any fine to be paid though, I'm only paying it to you."_

And that's pretty much everything you want to hear. You tell her you're the only one officiated to collect such a fine, and you settle down into the easiness you've found on the phone. When she asks about your day and how it's progressing, you fill her in on everything. You tell her about the hip new designer whose clothes are to die for, you tell her about the ringing in your ears from the rocking of the live music, and you tell her how much fun you've been having; a whole massive heap of fun.

"_That sounds awesome, Britt," _she says, making all the right noises to all of your exclamations. _"And Quinn's being cool yeah; she's not giving you anymore hassle?"_

It doesn't even touch your smile, the mention of Quinn's name. You tell her that she's been great; that you're actually a little enamoured with the Quinn who's on display today.

"_Enamoured?" _she asks, enunciating the word's each syllable. _"Fabray must be putting on one hell of a show, if enamoured is making an appearance."_

And you're sure that it is a show, somewhat, but you cut Quinn some slack. "I don't know," you say slowly, trying to find words for what you want to express, "it's just like, she's… _happier_, maybe? I think she's having fun."

There's just a beat of silence, just long enough for you to wonder at what Santana is thinking, before she speaks again; _"Quinn happy is… good," _she sounds out, and it sounds kind of cautious. _"Just keep an eye on her Britt, yeah? She's…" _You count another beat of silence and you take another moment to wonder, _"…She doesn't always hang as tight to happy as you think she's going to. Just… I don't know. Don't let your guard down."_

The silence this time is yours. You want to ask what exactly you should be guarding against and you want to ask why it is that Quinn comes with so many costumes in the first place. You know something of what Santana has told you already, you know what Rachel has told you, and you know that she's probably constructed as many identities as it takes to be raised in the Fabray family home; but still. You think if she maybe threw off all her facades and just stuck to today's Quinn, you could all let your guard down just a little in future.

You don't say any of that though; not right now, not on the phone.

You just say you'll keep your eyes open and your guards in check, and you ask again about _her_ day; about what it is she's doing that's stopped her from coming along today, and why it's still stopping her from coming along this evening. It's a long shoot and the fashion show doesn't begin in earnest until 7pm, and you kind of hoped that Santana might make an appearance, that she'd find an excuse to be by Quinn's side and you would have the delight of seeing her.

She tells you _no_ though. You actually hear as the smile slips away from her face and her words sink down to subdued. _"I have so much stuff to read up on," _she says, and you ask her for more detail. _"Apparently, I need to know something about Russell's crackpot policies if I'm going to be taking the stage on Saturday; it's not enough to just flog my misery, I actually have to be on point while they do it."_

You want to call _bunkum. _You want to say something a whole lot worse than bunkum. Something like _fuck'em_; like, really.

Hate isn't an emotion you spend a whole lot of time cultivating; you don't hold well to grudges, and time spent stewing always seems to you like time spent wasting. Yet you think you can definitely muster some hate for Russell Fabray; you're finding it really easy in fact.

You swallow the bitterness before you speak, though. You aim for something soft instead; "It's not too late to back out, right?" you ask, "Because you really don't need to do this, Santana."

"_It'll be okay, Britts," _she says, smoothing fast past your concern, _"And there's a whole lot of upside to dampen the downside; you don't need to worry. I'll be fine."_

But you do worry a little, as fine as she is.

She asks you next about your travel arrangements for tomorrow, and you groan your way through an explanation of how you'll be driving in the van with Sam after a full day of work, and for somewhere close to long past six hours. It's a long groan and you mean each second of it. She, of course, teases you with the fact that she's flying; _"And when we arrive, I get to stay up in the penthouse with all of the other privileged," _she carries on. _"Are you and Sam going to be sleeping in the van, too?"_

You tell her very funny. You tell her _no. _"We both have our own rooms," you inform her, "admittedly, not the penthouse, but Quinn booked us both in two floors below. It's like the pre-penthouse. It's actually where all of the action happens."

"_Yeah?"_ she asks, her tone shifting sideways from soft and slipping into seductive, _"You're planning some action in your room?"_

You hadn't actually planned anything of the sort, but now that your thoughts have tripped there almost by accident, you can't help but smile your own seductive smile. "Maybe…" you say, teasing her with your tone, "…I might take the time to make some study notes for assignment number nine; I want to be sure that you're fully prepared."

"_But we haven't even managed my half-assignment yet, Britt; are you letting me read ahead?"_

You think you'd let her read the whole book, cover to glorious cover, if that's what she wanted.

"Not too far ahead," you tell her instead, "but I'll definitely let you sneak a peek at some of the answers. We are going for an A grade, after all, right?"

"_But isn't that cheating?" _she asks, still touching on teasing, and you tell her no, not really, not if you're both doing it together. There's special circumstances, it's all in the code; "Trust me, San," you say, letting a little laughter release a little of the tension, "I won't tell the teacher you peeked, and she'll be none the wiser."

And she laughs along with you and she tells you that she could stay on the phone with you all day, just listening to you talk about your dedication to her education. "I am very dedicated," you assure her, and really, you are. When she tells you she should get back to her less-fun hours of education, you pout your way through a whine of disapproval, but you need to get back to work too and you don't hold her on the phone for too much longer.

You tell her you'll call her tonight. You tell her you'll see her tomorrow.

And you keep on smiling bright.

…

Your evening on the set of FashionistarZ passes just as easily as your day, and with twice as much fun involved. You've never modelled before beyond the stuff you do for promo-shoots, and the excitement of walking the catwalk to the accompaniment of the live music and the adoration of the crowd that's been let in to fill the stands, is something close to electric. It's kind of like dancing, a little, and you find a natural rhythm as you strut your stuff back and forth between each of the outfit changes.

By the end of the night you're totally amped.

There's a click to your fingers as you wait for Sam to collect up the last of your stuff, and when Quinn asks you if you want to perhaps grab a coffee after you've returned to the office, you throw away any memories of caution, and you keep the bounce in your step as you tell her _sure, why not? _

It wasn't a part of any plan you had for your evening, but today has been a good day, Quinn has been the most agreeable you've ever known her to be, and you think maybe you can capitalise something on the situation. Like, maybe if you can work out a little of what makes Quinn work the way she works, maybe you can start to make things a little better for Santana.

Because if Quinn likes you, maybe she won't be so livid when she finds out…

And you know you don't know her well enough to finish that thought through.

You do still agree to go for coffee though; you wave Sam goodbye when you're back at the office and you transfer yourself to Quinn's car instead. She's still driving the little sports car you first sat by her side in, and when you fix your seatbelt to fastened she tells you to pick something on the radio. You go for something upbeat and easy, something soft to accompany your drive.

The coffee shop she chooses to pull into is the same one you went to for your drive-through date with Santana, yet Quinn parks the car instead of driving through, and you go inside and find a table. She buys the coffee while you wait, and while you wait, you wonder a little bit more at all of the webs and the threads and the conjoined moments where each story you're learning, intersects and transverses.

You wonder more at the foundations of Santana and Quinn's friendship, and even though you don't really delight in the thinking, you can't help but wonder at what drew them together for that very first time. You know you won't be asking; at least not in this instance and definitely not of Quinn, but you do still silently ask your questions as you wait for your coffee order to be filled.

When she returns to the table she's still smiling, and she breaks your little reverie by telling you again what a truly wonderful day she's had; "Honestly, Brittany," she tells you, passing your coffee cup across the top of the table, "it's the best time I've had in ages; I really didn't expect it to be so much fun."

You smile and you nod and you share your agreement. "It was awesome fun," you say, "and we got to keep some of the clothes, so."

"I also got the phone number for the drummer in the band," she tells you, laughing lightly, "I doubt very much I'll be using it, but it's always nice to be desired."

You lift your eyebrow and slip your smile into grin. You hadn't even seen her talking to the drummer, let alone talking close enough to get his number. It sidelines your immediate thoughts about her and Santana; it gives you a different angle to ask questions from.

"The drummer was cute," you say first, because in a long-haired, dreadlocked kind of way, you guess he was. "Why won't you call him?" you ask next, "Do you have someone back at Yale already?"

She blows on her coffee while you wait for her to answer, and you watch her ease of manner drift away as her face slips through a thousand different emotions, before settling on her familiar tight smile. When she laughs, just a little, her tone is back to being measured, and you have to hold back a sigh as she goes to make words. "No, there's definitely not anyone waiting back at Yale; I'm not particularly interested in dating anyone at the moment, Brittany. With all the pressures of the campaign…"

Her words drift away, yet you don't feel like leaving them. You shrug your shoulder some, you take the time to stir the sachets of sugar into your coffee. "There's got to be someone though, right?" you ask when you fix your eyes on her again, "You're really pretty Quinn, and you must be really smart to go to Yale…"

Her head tilts, she considers you a moment. "You think I'm pretty?"

"Sure; I mean, I don't really go for blondes myself, I think things are a lot more colourful when you mix-and-match, but you're definitely a looker. You must have guys lining up at the door, wanting to date you."

She considers you further. She takes another sip of her coffee.

She changes the subject as fast as her face changes.

"Did you know that Santana is going to be joining us in Fairfield for the weekend?"

Yes, you did. And you shake your head _no. _

The change in direction is enough to render your eyes wide, and you hope that it conveys to her just how surprised you are to hear her question. "Santana?" you say, picturing confusion. "I didn't know. Should I know?"

"Probably not. But now you do; have you given anymore thought to what we spoke about before?"

She sits back in her seat as she surveys you, and you lean forward in yours as you answer her; "No, not really. I mean, there's not much to think about, seeing as how I don't really know Santana."

She smiles and she nods slightly and she wraps you up in her stare, "Can I still trust you Brittany?" she asks next, and you pause before you answer. You have no idea where this is going, you have no idea if you want to go there with her, and you stall for time as you drink more coffee.

Eventually, you tell her _yes; _"I told you before, off the record, is off the record. You can say whatever you want to say."

She doesn't say anything. Not for a longer moment than you held your silence.

When she does speak, she doesn't look at you; she keeps her eyes on her coffee cup, and her words are all matter of fact; "Santana is supposed to be speaking this weekend," she tells you, and you keep your face clipped close to the right level of interested. "I don't know how they talked her into it, it shocked the hell out of me when daddy told me she agreed…" She flicks her eyes up to you for a brief glance, a second's pause, "…She's really not been herself lately, and I'm actually beginning to worry."

"Oh," you say. You don't know what else to say.

"One minute she's the same rebel without a cause; staying out, ignoring her abuela, causing merry hell for the rest of us; and now she's doing this…" You shrug your shoulder when she fixes you again with her gaze, "…It doesn't make any sense."

You still don't know what to say, and still you say nothing.

She doesn't look at you again, though, you're not even sure when she speaks again if she's even aware that you're still sitting there listening. "I have enough going on behind the scenes right now without Santana going off at the deep end."

"Huh?" you say, because it's better than nothing.

She flusters for a second when her eyes meet yours, and she focuses on the back end of her sentence instead of her first words. "You remember the last time she was meant to speak?" she asks, and you tell her that you do, "I could just do without it this weekend. If Santana's looking to blow off steam, I just wish she'd do it some place where she's not my responsibility."

You aim your eyes for sympathetic. You have no idea if Quinn is covering concern for Santana, concern for herself, or just screwing with your thoughts for some kind of sport. You have that less of a read on her. The most you know is that you really don't know.

"How come it's your responsibility?" you ask her, because it seems a lot simpler than asking what the heck is going on with everything. "Santana's old enough to make her own choices, right; bad or good?"

She laughs. She says _of course. _"We have an agreement though; I keep Santana in her abuela's good books, and she keeps me…" She trails off, she sighs, she waves her hand, "…She helps me with whatever I need. It's hard for her to be helping though, when she insists on all of the hindering."

You say you're sure it'll be fine. Santana will be fine.

"Maybe," she says, finishing up her coffee, "but if there's one thing that's guaranteed to set her off, then it's parading her feelings in front of a crowd." You shrug your shoulders, she leans forward on the table, and she tells you just a little of how Santana lost her mom, how her story brings a sentimental touch of reality to her father's lacklustre campaign, and again, how she has no idea why Santana has agreed to do it.

You finish up your coffee, you once more shrug your shoulders, and you assure her again that you're certain that everything will be fine.

…

By time you eventually pull into Fairfield, it's late on Friday night and you've forgotten everything there is about how to feel fine. It's been a long ass day, followed by a long ass drive, and all you really want to think about is finding your room, maybe finding a shower, and then finding your bed. Sam has shouldered the majority of the driving, but you haven't stopped working once; trying to put the final things in place for tomorrow, keeping on top of tonight's airing of the show. You're pretty spanked out when you eventually walk into the lobby of your hotel and you aren't at all equipped to deal with being greeted by Quinn.

She's by the reception desk though, holding yours and Sam's keys in hand, and she kisses the air around both of your faces when you make it to the place by her side.

"Finally," she says, and yes, you are late and yes it is close to midnight. "I was getting ready to add you to the ever growing missing list; I was right about Santana."

She looks to you when she speaks, and you look to Sam before you look back to her, "Santana's missing?" you ask, because it seems appropriate.

"Indeed she is. No one's seen her since dinner, and she's in one hell of a mood."

"Maybe she's in her room?"

She sighs at your suggestion and tells you that she'd know if that were the case because they're sharing a room. "The penthouse has enough beds for everyone. If I'd thought about it properly, we could've roomed you and Sam up there too."

You tell her that's fine, you tell her you don't mind being in the pre-penthouse.

She looks at you, she raises one of those perfectly manicured eyebrows, "Pre-penthouse?"

"It's a thing," you say, and you shrug your shoulders and find your smile.

She just shakes her head and gives you that look she gives you when she doesn't quite get you. For a few minutes she keeps you and Sam talking, going over the directions for the morning before she speaks again of the afternoon, "Santana is scheduled to speak before me, so if she turns up, I'll be on at 5... Are you going to bother filming?"

Sam says _sure_, you say _of course, _and then she leaves you alone to go and find your rooms.

In the elevator Sam nudges you. He fixes you with the look that says he knows exactly what's going on here; he's known you forever and nothing gets by him. "You're all lit up again," he says, and you just smile a little higher. When your phone buzzes, you pull up the text, and he nudges you again.

"It's nothing," you tell him, and his grin splits his face wide.

"I'm betting you know where Santana is."

"Maybe," you say, as you type out a reply on your phone.

You'd spoken a lot to Sam during your longer than six hour drive, and you filled him in a lot on what's been happening with you and Santana. You also filled him in on the weirdness going on with Quinn; you haven't told him everything, you just said there's history, but you're sure you stressed to him more than enough that even though you and Santana are only _awesome _friends, it's an awesomeness that Quinn just doesn't need to know about.

He called it _complicated; _you had agreed.

He told you to be careful.

You didn't tell him that love probably doesn't even know what careful means.

When the elevator doors open up on your floor, your eyes get the greeting they've been waiting for all day. She's there already with a tight white button down shirt tucked into her obscenely tight jeans, she's leaning against the wall, and she's neither smiling nor scowling, yet you see the little spark of light in her eyes when they catch a sight of you.

She doesn't focus on Sam at first; she walks a little way forward, then she stops, and her gaze flicks to the side. "Sam," she says, and her voice shakes just a little, "how was the drive?"

He answers her _long_, and his eyes land on you, "I'm gonna get settled in my room," he says, hoisting his bag up higher on his shoulder. "I'll call Mercedes, let her know we got here safe. Holler if you need anything, yeah?"

You say _yeah_, and he leaves you both with a wave goodnight.

His room is three doors down from yours, and yours is just two doors down from the elevator. You wonder where Santana was waiting that she made it to your floor so soon after you text her your room number, but you don't ask her right now. You let your eyes run up and down the length of her; you soften your face into a smile. "Hey, you," you say, but she's still not smiling, and even though Quinn was completely wrong in her statement of Santana's missing status, you think that she was a whole lot right when she told you how much Santana would be freaking in the face of her speaking engagement. You noticed it in the tone of her texts all day. You noticed the tightness in her voice when you spoke to her on the phone at lunchtime.

You step towards her though, you fit your finger into the front of one of the pockets on her jeans, and you lead her slowly towards the door to your room. She doesn't resist, she follows you along at your pace, and when you get her inside and turn to fully face her, you drop your bag down and you say _hey_ again.

"I didn't think about Sam," she says, before she says anything else, and you tell her right away that it's nothing to worry about.

"Sam's my _best_ friend," you remind her, "he knows that we hang out; he knows it's kind of a secret."

Her eyebrows raise up on what you say, and she steps around you and into the room.

Your gaze just follows her footsteps as they make their acquaintance with the carpet on the floor; she walks all the way across the room to the window, she stands and she huffs, then she turns and walks her way back over to you. Her arms are crossed really tight around her chest, and all you want to do is unwrap her slowly and smooth out her edges.

You say _hey _for the third time when her eyes meet yours again, and for a moment she rests. Her arms uncross and she runs a hand through her hair, and you take the opportunity to catch a hold of the other one. "I missed you," you tell her, and she slowly nods her head.

"I'm so sick of it here already," she finally says, and you tighten the hold about her fingers. "You have no idea of the shit I had to sit through at dinner; Russell Fabray makes me so fucking sick, and as for my _papi…" _She sneers and you sniff and you ask her the obvious:

"Have you been drinking, San?"

"A little wine at dinner, a little wine after dinner. I needed something to knock the edge off, you know?"

She takes her hand back from yours and she turns towards the bed. It's not a super massive bed but it looks all kinds of enticing, and when she takes a seat you find one by her side. Not too close, she's giving off a vibe that makes you think of caged tigers, and you really don't want to rattle her bars, not least until you've calmed her, yet you do still sit by her side.

She looks to you and her eyes look as far away from calm as you can imagine. "I really thought I could do this, Britt," she says, her voice pitching again, "but I don't know… I…"

She pulls herself up from the bed again, and she starts pacing in front of you, her words slipping into Spanish and her hands thrashing about in the air around her. You say her name and she doesn't listen, and you stand to find the space in front of her. "Come here, San" you say, reaching out for her hand, "you need to calm down."

You catch her eyes with yours again, but she takes a step back, "I'm sorry, I should go, I shouldn't have-"

You cut her off before she says the ridiculous. You reach out and slip your finger into the top of her jeans again, and you pull her flush against you. She says _Britt_ as if you're a surprise, yet you don't answer her. You quiet her with a kiss; just the smallest kind of kiss to wipe the taste of wine from her lips. And when you say _Santana _this time, she looks at you for real.

"I don't want you to go," you say, and you lean in again and rub your nose lightly against hers, "I want you to stay and hang out for a while…" She breathes in deep and you pull her in close enough to wrap her up in the tight hold of your hug, "…In here it's just you and me, and…"

You shrug your shoulder just a touch, and she pulls back from your hold to look up at your face; "I'm sorry," she says again, and again you quiet her nonsense with a kiss. Again it's small, and again it's just to find the silence, but you're smiling when you pull back from her, and her eyes drop down and fix on your lips.

It makes you smile higher. It makes her smile ignite a little in return.

When she asks you why you couldn't get here sooner, you don't know what to say. "I'm here now, though, right?" you settle on, and she takes in another deep breath.

"You are," she says, and she pulls fully out of your hold and she pulls herself together. You watch her do it; like, literally, you watch as she stretches out the line of her shoulders and lifts her head up high again. She lets her gaze run over you properly, and when she finds your face, she smiles her _Santana _smile at you. "So we're hanging out, huh?" she asks, "Don't you need to get some sleep or something?"

You do, yet you're not so tired anymore.

You tell her something like that as you take your place on the bed. You lie out full length and you reach across for the control for the TV; she settles next to you, her back against the headboard and her legs by your side. While you surf the channels for some kind of background sound, you mention to her that you saw Quinn, and that she was looking for her.

"Let her keep looking; she's half the reason I split in the first place." You turn your head to her and lift your eyebrow up, and she's offers you an explanation; "She's obsessed with why I'm here, she won't let it go. I have to share a room with her and she won't shut up; seriously, I'm close to…"

Her words stop and she looks away. "You can stay here," you tell her, and she looks back.

"Not that simple. I still plan on going through with tomorrow," she says, "it'll do more than piss everyone off if I pull out now, and I can do without the drama. I'll go back in a bit; I'll tell her I got lucky at the bar, she'll find it easy enough to believe."

She shrugs and rolls her eyes and you drift onto your side to get a clearer look at her. There's something you've been wanting to ask, and she just offered you the perfect opening. You still pause for a moment though, you still try and fashion your words into ones which won't make her move away from you. You perch your head up on one of your hands and the other you reach to pull at the cuff of her shirt. When her fingers have found yours, you speak your question; "Why doesn't Quinn get livid when you find other…" but you still haven't figured out quite how to say it. You say _friends, _and her eyebrow rises.

She smiles tight, she shrugs, "They're hardly _friends,"_ she says, and she pulls your hand across and into her lap. "As long as things stay casual, Quinn sees what she wants to see. Random hook-ups in bars are what she expects; it's easy enough not to disappoint her."

She's doing that thing with your hand again, where she measures your palm against her own, and you let her keep a silence for just a moment before you speak; "Santana," you call softly, waiting for her eyes to drift down to yours, "this isn't casual, right?" you ask, and she stares at you for a long time before she finds an answer.

You actually wonder at first if you've scared her words away. If what you're asking is getting too close to the questions you know she's not yet ready to answer, but you had to say it. You have to know that she sees the difference between what's going on here and everything else that she's used to. The fact that her eyes stay on yours give you comfort through the silence, and when she smiles really soft, and so close to shy, you know that she's not backing away from the moment.

She wraps her fingers around yours again and her gaze flits to your enjoined hands before she whispers out her words, "This," she says, squeezing tight, "is probably the furthest thing from casual I've ever felt."

And you ask _yeah, _and she nods. And when you smile, she smiles.

You shift closer without even thinking about it. Her hips are level with the line of your eyes, and you take your hand back from hers and use it to pull the shirt from her pants. She asks _Britt _but you don't listen; you lift yourself up and you place your lips to the skin of her stomach, just above her jeans, just in that place where her hips dent inwards. She breathes deep and you watch her stomach rise, you watch the goosebumps jump across her skin, and you lean forward and kiss her again. When she says _Brittany_ the way that she does, you pause and you pull your eyes back up to her face.

She asks what you're doing, and you shoot her a wink, "Looking for awesomeness."

"That's a thing?"

"It's an awesome friend thing," you assure her, and when you lean forward this time, you don't just press your lips up against her; you open your mouth, just slightly, and you suck her skin gently between your lips. When she hisses, you graze against her with your teeth and you pull back again. She's looking at you and her eyes are wide, they're dark and deep and her hands have found a grip on the comforter and she looks afraid to move.

And you know that this is more than _friends,_ and you know this isn't what she's used to.

It makes you move slowly, yet still you move. You pull yourself up and you slide a leg across her until you're sat gently astride her. Your hands you place either side of her head and you lean down close until you can touch her lips with a kiss. Her eyes close on contact, and when she opens them again, you've erased a little of the fear. You say _hey, _and she smiles a soft _hi, _and you kiss her again. When her lips part slightly, you smile back against her.

And you still move slowly. You push yourself back up until your sitting and you let your hands drift down to finger the buttons on her shirt. Her hands come to yours, and her voice sounds so shaky you have stop what you're doing; "We're just taking study notes, right?" she asks, and…

…and how the heck can you feel _so_ much for one person?

It's so large inside of you, so potent and tangible, and you just wish you could tell her everything, you wish that words weren't something which say too much, and you just…

"Study notes," you whisper, your fingers opening the first button at the bottom of her shirt. She draws in a deep breath and her hands stay on yours, but she doesn't still your movement. She follows your progress. When you reach the last one, you stop, and her hands fall away.

You don't say anything, and neither does she, but you lock your eyes into hers and you find all of your answers. She breathes _Brittany_ once more, and once more you lean forward to kiss her. And you think you know what you're doing; you think you're soothing away all of the worries she brought to your room, and you think you're fixing her up, and you think you're calming her, and…

When your fingertips find the skin on her stomach, you stop thinking.

You drag them ever so slowly upwards; moving aside the sides of her shirt until they fall wide open, and your eyes are graced again with the sight of her in just her underwear. It's been a while since you saw her body, yet you haven't forgotten, and your eyes drink her in with the thirst of someone who's stumbled upon a treasured memory.

She's just, _incredible_. Like…

Framed by the white of her shirt, her skin catches colours smoother than any painting, and you're certain that no work of art could ever move you in the ways that you're moved by seeing her laid out before you. You'd say _perfect_ if you thought that perfect came close enough, but it doesn't, and you don't, you just say _Santana_.

And she smiles, and she looks unsure, and you give her equal ground to stand on.

You move your hands to the bottom of your own shirt, and you pull it up and over your head without standing on ceremony; "You need study notes too, right?" you say, but you've lost her eyes already.

They're on you.

Or all over you. Or making memories for herself that she looks like she might want to treasure.

When her hand lifts and you feel her touch for the first time as she runs her fingers across the skin on your stomach, everything within you tenses. You catch a deep breath of your own and it brings the smile back to her face; she looks up at you, she bites her lip…

And you're not sure who's more helpless.

You feel all of the words wanting to rush up on you again and you swallow tightly. There's just so much you want her to know, so much inside of you that you wish to give to her, yet… you just say _kiss me; _because inside of your kisses you can tell her everything, and inside of her kisses she can answer the same. She nods, her eyes still tight with wonder, and you lower your lips down towards her once again.

Yet you pause…

For first you wish to speak to her about want and desire, and you tease the smile onto her lips as you hover just out of distance of her kiss. She strains up from the bed, she lifts herself up on her elbows and sets to chase after the sensations she seeks, but you pull back again. You stutter forward with tiny kisses, you catch her lips and break away, you come close but not close enough… When she whines _Britt, _when she looks at you imploring and you know she truly understands just how much you want, then you speak to her about need.

You press down against her; the skin of your stomach falling flush against hers, the black and purple trim of her bra causing friction as it catches against the material of your own. She breathes in deep, you feel her shudder beneath you, and you catch her in the kiss you need. You fill her mouth completely with your tongue and you tell her it all; you tell her how all of your hours are filled full of longing for her, how every minute your eyes aren't on her, you're imagining daydreams about her, and how every second you can't do this - just kiss her - is like a long drawn out torture that only ends when your lips have found hers again.

You say this to her, inside of your kiss, and you listen as she silently repeats all of your words; her hands tangling up in your hair as she pulls you harder against her, as she insists that as close as you are isn't as close as she needs to be…

Her fingers slide down your back, tracking places where her touch is still new, and her hips shift beneath you so that your thigh falls between her thighs, and you both break, and you both gasp,

And she says _Brittany,_

And you…

_Santana,_

And you place your face tight into the crook of her neck, and you breathe in and breathe out, and you fight the grind you want to find, because this is need, and you do need her, you _do,_ but…

You go to pull back, to distance yourself from a desire you're losing the will to say no to, but her fingers find your ass and she pulls you closer again, and this time, when you feel her hips rise, you don't fight the grind; you push down into her, you pin her to the bed with the force of your want, and again you seek to still her… Just…

Her breath is in your ear, and you can almost hear words.

Like frantic pants of partial speak; of _god_ and _Britt _and _yes. _

Just yes.

And you hear how much she wants you, and you feel how much she needs you, and for a moment you think, two out of three… you think that oblivion might be okay if you both go there together, and you think that you can tell her another time about that last thing which follows the want and the need and…

_No._

Just no.

Because all of your life you've wanted and needed, but never in your life have you _loved._ Not until now, not until this life, and not until Santana. It makes you want more and need more and you pull her hands from you now and find the spaces beside her head.

And she looks at you and her eyes are dark and wild.

You breathe in and out and in and out.

Her gaze tracks your eyes, your lips, your eyes.

"Britt…" she says, and it's desperate and unsure, and it's asking why you've stopped, and why you're holding her hands down, and why…

And you tell her about love.

So slowly.

You whisper _Santana_ when your lips touch against hers, but the rest you still carry inside the silence of your kiss. You place your lips to her cheeks and you caress her skin, and when you feel her breathe out and relax and hold herself gentle, you pull yourself back and you release her hands. And you just look.

At each other.

And all you can see is the awesome.

And you want to appreciate each and every inch of it; you want her to know, to understand, that there's nothing here to hate, that there's nothing here to hide, and that when you whisper kisses of love, you mean each and every one of them.

She lies still as you lean into her again, and when you slide your tongue along the skin on her neck, she leans her head to the side to give you an easier path to follow. Your lips track the heat in her skin, and you rain kisses down across her chest and past the allurement of her breasts, you flutter the muscles in her stomach with the pressure in your lips, and you kiss the perfect circle around the centre of her navel before you journey back towards her north.

You stop at black and purple, you bite your lip, you kiss her shoulder. You worship the soft skin of her arm, and that smooth space that sits inside of her elbow. You lift her hands and you kiss her palms, and then…

"_Santana_," you say, because her eyes are sparkling, and you didn't mean to make her sad.

She's biting her lip, she's shaking her head slowly from side to side. She says, "I…" and her eyebrows dip, and you say _San. _

When you lean into her, her hands go to you, they wrap around your back, they pull you flush against her body again until you can feel her heartbeat racing in her chest, and her breath is back in your ear, and,

_What is this, Britt…_

She asks you. She _asks_ you.

You ease her grip to pull back to her eyes, and she looks at you like, like you have the answers to all of her questions and you have the reasons for all of her logic, and you have…

_Her._

That's what she's saying. You can hear her, and you can see her, and she's telling you that she's yours. Not in words, not in ways which can be later denied or brushed aside or,

When she says _Brittany_ again, her voice is soft, and it stops all of your thoughts and you just smile. You smile at her like she's the best thing you've ever seen or ever known, and you say _hey, _and you lean forward, and you kiss her.

Not to say anything new, but just to confirm what you now already know.

You love her. And she loves you.

And the kiss she gives you back confirms it.

…

You kiss her for a long time. You make patterns across her skin with your touch and your tongue, and you tell her over and over with the depth of your silence how she's making you feel. She touches you too. Her hands shake more than yours do, and her eyes meet your own each time her fingertips graze against some place new; like she's mapping you, like she's taking note of your reaction to her and her reactions to your reactions…

_Study notes. _

It breaks the silence once you've come to rest; when you're just holding her against you and her fingers are drifting slowly back and forth across your uncovered stomach, and your muscles still flutter and sometimes you flinch, and,

"Study notes…" she says, her head angling on your shoulder so she can look up at you, "…Note number one is that you're ticklish kind of everywhere."

You scrunch your nose up, you smile; "Sure, a little, maybe," you tell her. "What's note number two?"

It makes her smile before she tells you. She leans her lips and plants a kiss on the skin just above the edge of your bra, and when she looks back up at you, you see the return of that smug grin lifting the sides of her lips. "More study sessions," she says, and you laugh, and she moves, and when she settles she's on top of you, sitting across you, her thighs either side of your hips and her shirt still hanging open.

You can't help but lick your lips. "More study sessions," you agree, caught in a leer.

"And lots more assignments," she says. And you lift your leer to meet her eyes.

You want to say _sure_, you kind of need to say _now,_ but you wiggle your eyebrows instead. You mimic her smug look and cocky composure as you roll your hips just slightly beneath hers. "Lots of assignments," you say, as her eyes slide wide.

She says _God, Britt_.

You wiggle your eyebrows again.

Yet when she pulls herself off of you and starts buttoning her shirt back up, you pout perhaps the biggest pout that has ever crossed your lips. You know she has to go, you know this wasn't an all night affair, but every time she leaves you, it makes you ache just a little bit more. And, "San…" you say, letting your breath out on a sigh. "…I really want to take on assignment eight and a half. Like, soon."

She stops. Her forehead creases as she looks at you and she reaches out to take your hand. "I know," she says, "it might actually be the assignment I'm most looking forward to."

You ask _yeah_, because you would've guessed that nine was the assignment that was filling all the vacant spaces in her mind. She shrugs her shoulder though, she lets her eyes drift away to the ceiling before she looks at you again. "Do you know how hard it was leaving you the other morning, Brittany? Do you know how hard it is to leave you every time I have to go?"

You shake your head. She squeezes your hand.

"I _hate_ leaving you. I think it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and…"

"And one day you won't," you tell her.

She looks at you. She really looks at you.

"And one day I won't."

You put your t-shirt back on before you walk her to your door, and you don't even stop to look at a clock or think about time, or lack of time, or tomorrow, or anything. She pulls you in for another kiss and it's all you can do to think at all.

What you do think is that she's going to say goodnight, you think that when she pauses and looks sad in the moment, it's a reaction to the hardest thing she's ever had to do. Yet she doesn't say words about leaving, she says different words; ones you weren't remembering. "Tomorrow," she begins, her gaze drilling into the floor, "you're going to need to…"

You say _what_ and her eyes flick to yours before they fly back to the floor.

"When I do this speech thing, Britt, I need you to not be there, okay?" You look at her, really look at her, and you see what she's saying. "I can't… if I know you're there, I can't be hard, and I need to be hard. I can't do this if…"

"Hey," you say, and you take her hand and she meets your eyes, "stop worrying, okay? Whatever you need, I can do. Just, come and find me when you need me."

And she nods. And her eyes find the floor again.

And you hold her until she tells you goodnight.

…


	14. Cloud Cover

Saturday morning, you're awoken by a text message from Quinn; you managed to arrange a signing event at the local mall for this lunchtime, and she was keen to confirm times and to invite you down to share breakfast before you set about your day's business. It's completely normal, and actually expected, yet this morning you don't feel either expected or particularly normal.

You feel abnormally expectant.

It doesn't make sense, even to yourself, yet you haven't been able to shake the feeling since your eyes first slid to open, and that's the only way you can describe it. It's nothing so dramatic as an ominous sense of dread, or a creeping shiver down your spine, but it's there; floating behind your thoughts, prickling something in your subconscious that causes you to frown. You've tried to follow the thread; you're of course worried about Santana and the day that she faces, you know you're somewhat on edge in regards to how everything is going to play out with Quinn, and you're certain that this _feeling_ is an underpinning to those thoughts, yet…

You can't explain it, you can't quite put your finger on it, and it leaves you frowning, even when you meet with Sam in the lobby on your way to the dining room.

He catches your expression before your _hello, _and he returns it with narrowed eyes and his large lips pouting. When he asks you what's knocked the sparkle from your shine, you just shrug your shoulder a little and tell him you don't really know. It's nothing specific, you're fine, really, you just… _something. _

Like an itch at the back of your brain which you can't reach to scratch.

You try and shift your frown into an expression more appealing when you enter the dining room, and by time your eyes fall onto a waving Quinn, you've almost found your smile.

She's sitting at a large round table, set for twelve places, and immediately flanking her right is her father. To the left is a lady you don't recognise, and to her left is Eduardo, Santana's father. You know who's sitting to the left of him; you don't need to look to be aware of her presence, and you take your seat opposite her without searching out her eyes.

You want to. You still haven't gotten over your craving to have her eyes on you always, yet now, in this situation, you're scared to expose even a shred of what you feel for her before your current audience. You gusto out your enforced greetings instead; you reach across the table to shake Russell's hand, you nod your head in Eduardo's direction when he tells you it's nice to make your acquaintance again, and you return the smile which Quinn seems to keep trained tight on you. In fact, you're so intent on keeping your eyes away from Santana, that you sit at the table for a full five minutes before you dare to share your gaze in her direction.

You think you count each second.

All of the seconds cement into one second when you look at her.

You stop. You pause.

You _look _at her.

And the itch in the back of your brain scratches deeper.

You can't say _Santana, _you can't lean across and soothe anything with a touch; yet you know that she needs your touch, you know she needs the softness in your sounds… Because you can see what she's doing, and now you understand.

It's like you can actually sense the hardness of the shell she's erecting about herself; you can feel the tension in her walls as they graze up against you, and you remember what she said to you last night, you remember how you had acquiesced and agreed to stay away. And you want to kick yourself. You want to take back your own words which told her to find you when she needs you, and-

"Brittany?" Quinn interrupts, or rather demands, and you turn your head back her way. Her eyebrows are knitted close together, yet you don't sense suspicion in her gaze; it's more like, a sense of something imploring, as if she's wanting to nudge your eyes away from Santana for reasons other than the obvious.

You continue to look to her. She shakes her head.

You dip your eyebrow.

"I've been telling my father and Eduardo," she says, completely cutting out the presence of the unknown woman to her left, "all about our trip to the mall today; Daddy has some questions about relevance. Perhaps you could explain?"

She's practically begging with her eyes for you to talk, so you do so. You follow her cues and you answer Russell's words and you wonder at what the hell is going on. It's like you're playing at something normal when the atmosphere about the table is so incredibly abnormal, and you have no clue as to the situation you've been dropped into.

Or you do have clues, lots of them, you just don't grasp the specifics.

When your scrambled eggs arrive, you're glad to stop talking, and as you eat, you let your eyes wander again. To her, to all of the armaments she seems to have in place.

Her gaze doesn't wander once. She sits erect and silent, moving only when she lifts her cup to her lips, and it's almost as if she isn't even there, not at all, and the emptiness makes you ache.

You see the Santana these people have created.

And it's not like when you met her the first time, it's not like when you guessed that her hardened eyes and crossed arms and distant disposition hinted at a deeper sadness, because you know her now; you _know_ her, and you know just how sad she is, and you know just how much she's hurting, and_…_

You don't want to do this anymore.

When Russell and Eduardo stand from the table, she stands with them, and the woman at her side stands also. Finally she's introduced as Russell's _personal assistant_, and your interest in her remains at zero as you strain all of your thoughts in Santana's direction.

You just want her to look at you once.

Yet she does, and it doesn't stop the hurting.

…

With hindsight, it makes you hurt more.

Quinn had turned to you once only Sam and you remained at the table, and the sigh she let out was larger than any sigh you think you've seen her sigh before. You could visibly see the tension dissipate from her shoulders, and you turned to her needing more answers than you could ever form questions for. She had looked to you, looked to Sam, and then turned her head to watch as her father and the others had left the dining room; "That," she said, her voice low as if she was worried that they might still hear her, "was worse than hell. Sorry to torment you guys too, but honestly, I needed the distraction. If Santana hasn't killed all of them by the end of the day…"

She let out another breath, not quite a sigh, and Sam had stepped in; "What's wrong with her?" he asked, and you silently thanked him for speaking your mind.

"Everything? I don't even know; I still haven't gotten over the fact that's she's agreed to do this when she so obviously doesn't want to be here. I haven't seen her like this since…" she looked to you both and she shrugged her shoulders, "…I actually can't remember. She's going to go postal at some point; I can sense it."

Sam spoke up again and asked if maybe she couldn't come with you. It's wasn't an odd request, she's travelled with the three of you on various other occasions, and you asked the same question with your eyes when Quinn looked your way.

"A nice thought, really," she said, waving it easily away, "Santana spent most of last night blowing off a lot more than steam though, and I don't think _papi's _too keen to let her wander away today. No," she continued, setting her shoulders straight, "we'll do what we have to do at the mall, and if there's an aftermath to deal with later, well; we'll deal with it later."

It's the second worst plan you ever heard, yet you nodded your head and you set off for the mall as if that was the only place you wanted to be going. You smiled tight through every autograph, you punched the happy into your tone as you hyped up the upcoming shows and Quinn's presence on the soon to be filmed Fondue for Two special. You did everything you were supposed to be doing, and nothing that you wanted to do.

In your head you would get through with all of this, you would make the most of the opportunity to drum up more support for Quinn and for the show, and then you would wait back at the hotel for Santana. You knew that Quinn was scheduled to give her presentation immediately after, and in your mind that would clear the way for you to get to the only place you wanted to be…

Only.

You want to punch the wall with your frustration.

You already told Sam that you weren't going to accompany them to the conference centre to film the speech, and he'd understood immediately, yet Quinn…

"I actually wanted you to come with us, Brittany," she said.

Because all of the tension was making her nervous, because she didn't want to show up accompanied by a lone Sam, when there were going to be press there and she has a reputation… And although all of it sounded like nothing particularly important, _this _is your job and you're still here for Quinn.

You're standing beside her now, behind the stage and the curtain, and although you know Santana is out there, not much more than a few feet away from you, you still feel as if you're standing a thousand miles away. She didn't want you here; she told you specifically that she needed you to not be here, and even though you now disagree with her hard-line approach, even though you're aware of all of the hurt she's causing herself, you'd still rather not be blindsiding her like this. It's making you nervous, it's making you distracted, and when you hear the rapturous applause coming from front of stage to signal the end of her part in the circus, you try to shrink yourself back into the awnings and make yourself disappear.

Quinn, for her part, seems as momentarily subdued as you are.

You watch her watch her father appear through the curtain stage left, you watch her watch as Santana follows him. Eduardo takes up the rear, and your eyes move from Quinn to observe the trio.

To observe your one.

She looks terrible. She looks beaten. Her eyes are downcast and her shoulders are slumped, and when Russell goes to put his hand on her arm, and begins to tell her what a wonderful job she's done, she shakes it off violently, her lips twisting up into a vicious snarl; "Get the fuck off of me," she snaps out, taking a step back from him.

"Santanita!" her father interjects, stepping towards her.

Yet she takes another step back, her head shaking as she trains her eyes on Eduardo. "You," she says, her voice hitching, "don't even speak to me, just… _god…_"

You can see it all. Her hardness, her softness, the battle between the two. And it makes you think, it makes you wonder, if you're not making this harder for her. If all the ways you've touched and held her and prised her slowly open, have damaged her ability to keep this feeling at bay. Her eyes are wide and pain filled, and when she closes them, when you see her trying to reel it all back in, you want to go to her.

You've never wanted to move so much in your life.

No beat has ever itched at your feet with this much urgency, yet you hold yourself still.

You breathe in deep. You wait.

Quinn speaks up next, just off to your side, offering Santana some kind of platitude, something calming, and it's then that her head turns.

It's then that her eyes meet yours.

And they go wide again. And the pain hits you and hurts you and her head shakes and…

"Just stay the fuck away from me," she replies to Quinn's words, yet her eyes flick to you and you know that she means it. Right now, in this second, you're just as much a cause of her pain as everyone else standing here, and she wants away from all of you.

When she storms off, no one stops her.

"I guess that didn't go so well," Quinn says at your side, yet you don't reply.

"Actually," Russell informs her, "it went exceptionally well. We should roll her out at every pit-stop; the crowd seemed to really take to her, don't you agree, Eduardo?"

Eduardo says nothing.

Russell just slaps him on the back, laughing a little at his own suggestion before he turns his attention to Quinn. His smile slips slightly, just a moment, yet you take a silent note of it. "My favourite baby girl" he says jovially, walking towards her with his arms outstretched, "are you ready to go make Daddy proud again?"

You feel sick watching him, with his smarmy smile and saccharine sweet words.

"When do I ever let you down, Daddy?" Quinn replies, and you actually want to request a bag to vomit into. She walks into his hug and her smile is just as practiced and perfunctory as his is. "Is there anything in particular you want me to highlight?" she asks next, and you turn your eyes and ears from them and onto Eduardo instead.

You don't understand why he's still here, you don't understand how he could stand beside his daughter when she was obviously in so much pain, and just let her walk away. But then, you have no clue as to why he'd ever push her up on stage in the first place. You're beginning to feel as if these people are monsters; actual physical embodiments of the bad thoughts that go bump in the night.

When Quinn takes to the stage, you go and find Sam and you settle at his side. The speech that Quinn is going to give isn't scheduled to last that long, and more than ever, you're counting down minutes, just waiting on the time when you can go back to the hotel.

You need to soothe Santana's hard, and you need to cradle her soft, and you…

You just need.

…

When you return to the hotel, there isn't any sign of her. You check your phone and she's neither called nor text, and Quinn is quick to inform you that she's not in their hotel room and she's not at the hotel bar, and no one has any clue where she is.

You're not surprised.

You don't think that anyone is particularly surprised when you join them down in the dining hall for dinner. There's that empty space next to Eduardo, but no one calls attention to it while you push your food around your plate and attempt to eat, and it's not until you've sat through dessert that anyone even mentions her name.

It's Russell who brings attention to her, his eyes smiling as he turns to Eduardo and again claps him on the shoulder, "So," he says, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms up, "where do we think the little hellion has run off to this time?" Eduardo doesn't answer and Russell carries on with his words; "If ever there was a woman that needs tying down, then it's that one; you really should have learnt your lesson with her mother," he says, turning his nose up with distaste, "what's that word you use; _puta_?"

It's a Spanish word you do understand, and your brow creases down into a tight frown at the insult. You hate this man. You _hate_ him.

You watch as Eduardo's brow follows your frown, and you sense his shame at Russell's words. "She's certainly a tough one to keep a hold of," he says, his face not smiling, "she has had a hard day though, Russell; we should appreciate what she's done for you and not waste focus on what she's doing now."

"Especially when we can all imagine just what she's doing now, hey?"

Russell laughs out loud at his own words and again he slaps his hand down hard on Eduardo's back. If you were sat any closer to him, you're certain that the fork you're holding tight in your right hand would be imbedded in his leg by now. You don't believe in violence, you really don't, yet you'd go to war right now if it meant you could take a pot-shot at the absolute asshole sitting across from you. First would be Russell, no doubt about it, but you'd pack enough ammo to take down Eduardo too.

Both of them sicken you.

So much so you want to hurt them.

You stare your silent hatred in the direction of Santana's father, and when he looks up at you, you don't look away. You don't care what he thinks, what you might be giving away with the depth of your intention, you just want him to know, you see him for what he is. You hate him for what he is.

His face is filled with the shame you expected when he meets your eye, yet your anger is stronger and he drops his gaze to the table before he lifts it again. He stares at you, he once more dips his brow, yet you sense it's for different reasons.

You're so close to telling him, so close to blowing your cover of disinterested news crew and just telling him straight out what a piece of shit father you think he is. You lost your own before you were born, yet still he's been a better man to you than the one sat opposite who claims parentage for Santana. Your mouth opens yet Quinn steals your thunder, the light and airy version of her tone cutting fast through the conversation; "I'm sure I'll be able to find her," she says, smiling at both her dad and Eduardo, "either way we have an early flight; Santana can be an idiot, but she's not stupid. She'll be back here by then."

You don't know.

You've tried calling her, you've tried texting her, and you've had nothing in return.

You remember the missing weekend from the time she was only scheduled to speak at one of these things, yet today she really did speak and you think…

You think a lot of things which are bringing you pain.

You nod along to Quinn's words though when she asks if you and Sam will accompany her, you even attempt a smile as fake as everything else around you when she tells you to dress up a little, "It could be a long night looking," she says, rolling her eyes, "we may as well make the most of it."

And a little bit of you hates her too.

…

The bar you find her in is the fourth bar you go to.

You're surprised at first when your eyes settle on her, because you really did think that she'd make it a whole lot harder for any of you to locate her; yet she's here, right in front of you almost, and it feels further than a million miles.

She looks like… _Danger? _

You think maybe, yet she's certainly not a danger to the crowd she's currently entertaining, and you know that it's her own safety you're worried about. Not in the physical sense, that would be too easy to guard against. But that other kind, the emotional kind; she's like a screaming beacon to you, and you want to her offer her silence.

You want to take to her side and take her away, and just remind her. Of you, of her.

Of something like peace.

At the moment she looks like the opposite of peace. She hasn't seen any of you come in; she's over in the far corner, half draped across a pool table, offering her neck up to a bunch of guys with a salt shaker, and gripping her lips around a slice of lime.

"Looks like open season," Quinn quips at your side, and you grit your teeth.

You feel Sam place his hand on your back, and you're glad for the touchstone. "Shouldn't we go over?" he asks, directing his query to Quinn.

"What, and spoil all of that fun she's having?" She lifts her eyebrows up and down, yet yours knit closer together and you offer her a quick _huh _in hopes of elaboration."It's not too often she parties hard with the boys, Brittany; it's part of the build-up to the postal I warned you about earlier."

"And again," Sam says, a little more insistent, "shouldn't we go over and make sure she's okay?"

Quinn sighs and shrugs her shoulders. Her voice loses the light and airy tone that's been scratching at your ears since dinner, and for a moment she actually sounds genuine; "It's really not that easy Sam; when she blows, she blows. The best we can do is stand back and wait, and then be the clean up crew when she needs us."

Yet she needs you now; you _know_ that she does.

You just wish that she knew it too.

When Quinn takes your arm and turns you towards the long bar running the length of the room, you go easily. You watched Santana take her shot, you saw as one of the guys threw his arm across her shoulder in some kind of display of territorial pissing, and for the moment, you need to look away.

You only take a coke when Quinn asks what you want to drink, and you're happy when Sam orders the same. You're not drinking, not at all, because you know somehow, by the end of this night, you're going to need all of your wits about you.

Once you have your drink in hand, you turn back to face Santana's direction.

She still hasn't noticed you, she's still lost in whatever place she's condemned herself to visit, and you still want only to go to her. Yet you're no one to Santana in this situation, you have no grounds on which to act without revealing her secrets to all around, and so you just watch.

You watch them make it through another round of tequila, through another round of shaking out the salt... only it lands somewhere closer to her cleavage this time, and you flinch.

She's still wearing the skirt and blouse she'd had on at the convention centre this evening, yet her top buttons are undone and she looks about as far from conservative as you can imagine. She looks like…

Like you're going to kill the next guy who attempts to slurp his tongue across her skin.

You go to take a step forward without thinking, your body acting on autopilot in an attempt to protect that which you hold dear, yet Sam's hand lands on your arm and his soft spoken _Britt _slips inside your ear, and you clench your teeth, and your hands ball into fists at your side, and you hold yourself still and,

"We have contact."

Quinn's words draw your head her way, and you follow her eyes back to Santana, and,

"Oh."

Because for everything you saw in her eyes at the conference centre, for all of the hurt you felt back then, it's nothing compared to what you see now. Her nose is scrunched up in a snarl instead of a smile, and when her gaze drops from Quinn and lands on you, nothing changes. She looks so angry, so incredibly tight and tense and taut, and all you can think of is breaking.

She's breaking before you and you're heart is somehow breaking inside of you.

And it _hurts_.

The guy who had previously claimed the space across her shoulders with his lumbering arm, leans in again now and speaks into her ear, but her expression doesn't change. When he goes to throw his arm around her again though, she uses her elbow to push him away from her, turning her snarl in his direction. You can't hear the words she uses, but you can guess at their ferocity when you see the guy's eyes widen and he takes a step back.

"Okay," Quinn says at your side, "I'd say it's probably time for some damage control."

Your eyes are still observing, and you one hundred percent agree. You can see the touchy-feely testosterone laden _tool_ getting ready to retaliate to Santana's words, and you can feel your tummy twisting tighter and you're fists clenching harder, and if Quinn doesn't intervene right now, then you know that you will. You know that Sam will. Because secrets aside, a guy getting feisty with a woman is always a situation that allows intervention.

Quinn tells you to wait by the bar, she tells you she's going to calm the waters and then do her best to extract Santana, and you hold yourself back. Your eyes follow her over to the pool table where she effortlessly slides herself into the space between Santana and the unnamed asshole, and you know by her face that she's faking out her light and lilting sing-song voice. When she touches her hand to the guy's arm, he visibly relaxes. He turns his attention away from Santana.

She turns her attention back to you.

Her eyes dark, her expression pained, and in your mind you say her name, soft and tender, like you can somehow plead with her to see you, to stop this.

Yet she shakes her head. She closes her eyes. She turns away.

And you can't do this.

You can't force yourself any longer to stand and watch and do nothing and pretend that that's okay. It's not okay, nothing about _any_ of this is okay, and for the moment you walk away.

You say to Sam words about the bathroom, you ask him to keep watch while you're gone, and then you go. Just for a minute, just for…

Just to hold yourself together, for when she pulls herself apart.

…

The bathroom is up some stairs, and when you get to the top, there's a door marked for boys and a door marked for girls and a door that stands open and leads to outside. As always, you pick the door which leads you somewhere other than that place expected, and you find yourself standing out on a small balcony. It has a fire escape styled rickety staircase that leads down to the alleyway which lays behind the back of the club, and a randomly placed flowerpot with some large fake tree type thing in one corner, yet you don't look at either of these. You just look up. You search out the moon and you search for a star and you search for something that you've always counted on.

Yet it's hard to count the stars and feel close to infinity, when all you can see is the cloud cover. It's not dark and ominous or pregnant with a storm waiting to break, but it's enough to obscure your view. It's enough to have you sighing with a sadness you don't know how to placate.

Because you've fallen in love with a woman who doesn't want to love herself.

And nothing hurts more than that.

You find it bad enough that no one else sees all of the awesome you've found in Santana, but the fact that she can't see it for herself, that she'd rather hide and hurt herself than believe that she can be better… that she _is_ better than anything any of those people could ever say to her; it kind of kills you a little bit. Or it kills your smile. It kills a little of the hope in your heart.

Like cloud cover.

You breathe in deep to shake away the impending solemn, and you decide that perhaps the best thing you can do tonight is go back to Sam, call a cab, and return to the hotel. The feeling of ineffectiveness, this role of tortured audience, isn't something you know how to deal with, and you can't stay trapped in a situation where inaction holds you hostage.

You're just about to turn around, you're just about to step away.

And then.

You didn't even know that there was a back entrance on the floor below, you didn't know that there was a way for anyone to stumble out into the alleyway you're observing.

You recognise the voices straight away though - of _course_ you do - and you freeze.

Your thoughts dissipate. You strain to listen. And you hear her. You hear all of her anger and her pain and you step forward to watch her make words which hurt.

"What the fuck do you want from me now, Quinn?! Just go back to your fantasy fucking world and leave me the hell alone, okay? I don't need you and I sure as hell don't need this."

You see Quinn's hand wrapped tight around Santana's arm, and you imagine she somehow frogmarched her out here. She lets go now, she steps back, and you see that she's wearing one of her many different smiles; "What exactly are we playing at here?"

Her tone is almost borderline bored, yet the atmosphere crackles and you think again of danger, of red signs and warnings, and beacons of distress. "Do you think I have time for this?" she continues, "I know you like to roll in the rough, but offering it up to all on a pool table? Real classy, Santana."

The laughter Santana barks out in return is harsh on your ears and she doesn't smile once;

"Aren't I just doing what you all want, what's expected of me?"

"Whoring yourself out in cheap bars?"

"I spoke at your damn convention, I lied through my fucking teeth to make your ass of a father sound like a saint…" She runs her hands through her hair and it looks like frustration, "…I'm even playing with the boys Q; isn't this all that I'm supposed to do?"

Her words drop from angry to defeated, just for a moment, and when she asks Quinn if she isn't sick of all this bullshit too, you hope for a break in the clouds. You hope that she's sick enough of all this bullshit to call a stop to it.

When Quinn laughs, your head drops.

"Sick of it?" she questions, "I'm the one that got out; you're the one still stuck in the same old pity-party state of mind."

"Bullshit," Santana snarls, and the ferocity is back. "Daddy still yanks on your strings the same way he always has; you're still just a puppet, Q. You're still just as stuck as I am."

Her hand comes up and shoves at Quinn's shoulder, and you can see her spoiling for a fight - an actual physical fight - and you take a small step forward towards the edge of the balcony. When Quinn pushes back with enough force to land Santana against the wall opposite, your hands find the shape of a fist again.

"Shut the hell up," Quinn warns, her tone finding its own anger.

"Truth hurt, yeah?"

You watch Quinn fume, you watch her step up into the space directly in front of Santana's face. "Fuck you," she practically growls, and your tummy twists tight.

You see the spark in Santana's eyes, you see her face flash disgust as she pushes Quinn away, "I'd really rather not."

"Oh really, and why's that?"

"Maybe barren, dried up bitches aren't my thing anymore."

You don't have time to ponder choices of words, because the crack of sound which reverberates through the alley when Quinn's hand slaps at Santana's face, is enough to stall all of your thoughts. Your hands go to the railing and clench hard, your feet are itching to move and blow away all of the cover.

You stay silent though. You watch Santana as she lifts a hand to her cheek, as she smiles a smile you don't ever want to witness again. All you want is to break this tension. You've always wondered at this dynamic, you've always thought that you wanted to understand it and pick apart its threads; yet now, trapped inside a moment where the dynamic is churning in front of you, you just wish you could look away.

You can't.

Quinn's next words make you look even closer. Her tone has changed again, she's switched up her fluctuating facade, and when she leans back towards Santana, her voice is sickened with sweetness and full of fake sugar, "This wouldn't all be about Brittany, would it, San?"

And it trickles to your ears like a taunt.

You can see her poking private places, you can see her teasing out extractions that aren't hers to take, "Because really, if it is…" She snorts a little laugh and you watch it lift her shoulders, "…You're setting yourself up for a world of disappointment. Do you really think someone like Brittany would fall for the nonsense of someone like you? You're damaged San, you're more messed up than the rest of us put together…"

You hear the delight dipping and dripping all over her words, as if she thinks she's playing the ace in her pack, as if she believes the theories she's found will bring the situation back under control, and with it Santana the same.

Yet Santana's expression is blank. Like the perfect poker face which accepts Quinn may have aces, but isn't yet ready to lay down its own hand. "What the fuck are you even talking about?" she asks, and her voice hangs tight to incredulous as she shakes her head and widens her eyes. "Brittany, as in Brittany Pierce, your personal little MTV hanger-on? What the hell does she have to do with anything?"

"You think I don't see the way she looks at you?"

"Everyone looks at me, Quinn; resident slut, remember?"

"No, it's not just that. You've changed… something's changed."

"Because I don't just jump whenever you tell me to?"

"Among other things."

One of her hands comes up to rest against the wall by Santana's head, and she leans in far too close again, "It's not like you to say _no_, San; especially not to this…" Her other hand she runs up the length of Santana's arm, across her skin, dangerously close to the dip of her cleavage, "…Unless there really is someone stopping you…"

And she lays down another ace.

Like a bullet to the brain. Because you don't want to watch this situation unfold. You don't want to hear the words which come next.

They're low and your ears still strain to hear, and;

"There's no one stopping me."

And you watch Quinn's hand dare to dip a little lower, and her voice hit's a huskiness you never knew it possessed, and, "That's just what I wanted to hear, Santana…" And she's leaning in, and her head is angling, and,

Santana pushes her back again, she hitches her brow and she opens her mouth to speak, and,

Your phone rings.

The phone in your jacket pocket, wedged in with it's usual tightness, starts thumping out your latest ring tone, and you freeze. Your eyes are looking down, their eyes are looking up.

You break the stare to wrench the phone out of your pocket, and you see Sam's name lit up on your screen before it switches to missed call. You guess he's worried about you; you guess he's probably wondering where everyone has gone.

When you turn your gaze back below, Santana has dropped both her eyes and her shoulders, Quinn has turned to fully face your position, and her expression is mostly amused. "Brittany," she says, as if she's almost glad to see you, "you weren't by any chance _spying _on me, were you?"

You stumble over your thoughts, you grab quickly at words, "No," you tell her, "I just came out here… I was just, the bathroom, and Sam's waiting, and…"

She cocks her eyebrow and crosses her arms, and you say more; "We're actually going to leave now, I was coming to find you to tell you, and, yeah. So…"

You back away without waiting for words or answers, and you go to find Sam.

…

Sam's words sit in your ears all the way back to your hotel room, yet once you get there and you hug him goodnight, everything that he's said to you simply disappears. The space in your brain where your feelings could be calmed doesn't exist right now, and all you can do is sit and stew and wonder at what the fuck?

You can't even decide which emotion is marauding the strongest through your body; it's a cocktail of anger and resentment and jealousy and despair and love and loss and _misery._

It all feels like misery.

A part of you is stuck redundantly on the chastisement of the fact that you left. As soon as you walked away you felt it; as if you're body was denying your inner demands and all you could name yourself was _traitor_. You swore to yourself and silently to Santana that you would fight by her side no matter what wars she faced… yet you walked away.

You left her to Quinn, you left her alone.

And she may have turned away from you first, but still…

It confounds your emotions just as much as everything else; just as much as watching Santana throw herself to the wolves, just as much as the look in her eye while she did it, and just as much as witnessing the wondered dynamic between her and Quinn.

_Quinn._

Just the thought of her name has you shaking your head. You remember Rachel's words of ownership, and tonight you saw it for yourself. There's something there, without doubt, some silent means of control which lifts her above Santana and leaves her calling all of the shots, and it's no longer enough for you not to know.

There's so much that you're no longer content to leave buried.

You don't know what tomorrow will bring, you have no real clue when or how you're going to see Santana next, but when you do, you feel like the lines you've drawn between you need to be marked out different. You need to turn all of your touches to words, and you need to make them mean something, because you can't carry on falling without knowing when the ground is going to smash up and meet you again.

You know that Santana is as deep in this as you are, you _know _it, it's a certainty as strong as the knowledge that above the cover of clouds, the stars still exist to be counted, and it's that firmness of fact which has your feet mapping out the ground between your bed and the window, as you contemplate the un-weaving webs.

The pounding on your door pauses you, because you suspect that it's her.

In truth, you wonder if you weren't pacing the floor just waiting for her to catch up.

She pounds again, and you walk towards her.

You breathe deep, you gather your wits about you, and you open the door.

And she's still not there. Her eyes are solid walls of steel and all of her anger is still so obviously apparent in the set of her jaw and the scowl on her face. She pushes past you through the door, she marches into your room and spins on the spot to face you, her expression pinning you down with the weight of accusation; "You just left?" she says, her hands thrown up in front of her as if to confirm her incredulity.

You cross your arms across your chest.

You say nothing.

This is the whole reason you needed to keep an even keel tonight, because on the one hand, you could blow just as easily as Santana; you could spit back accusations of how she left you first, or about how liberally she shook the salt out onto her skin tonight, or maybe, how close she let Quinn get before she pushed her away. You have plenty to accuse her of, if you were one for accusations, yet, you don't want to war with Santana, you still just want peace.

So you hold your arms tight about you, and you watch her come apart.

She's still gesticulating with her hands, and her speech slips back and forth between Spanish and English and a slurred mismatch of the two. You catch the drift of her rants towards her day; you hear _papi, _and you hear hurt, you hear _Russell,_ and you hear hate. When she says _Quinn,_ she pauses herself. You watch her brow dip down as if the weight of her thoughts are pushing forward to crumple her face.

She looks at you, you hold her stare. She looks away.

You speak.

"I'm tired, Santana," you say, and you're sure you sound a thousand years tired. Because you are. Tired of being certain of something which comes wrapped in so many doubts.

Like a paradox eating you from the inside out.

When you sigh, it sparks her again.

You watch her face flash confused, and when she takes a surged step forward, you take one back. "You're tired?" she demands, and again she's angry. "_I'm_ fucking tired!" she insists, "Do you know how damn hard this is? Do you have any fucking clue how much I _hate_ this?"

You don't shrug. You hold yourself still, even when she takes another step into your space.

"I can't eat, I can't fucking _sleep_," her hands come up and clench tight around your biceps, and she drills her eyes into you, as if insisting that you understand what she's saying. "It's all fucked up, Britt, and I can't… I can't _do_ this…"

You prepare yourself for what's next. You prepare your heart to hear her alcohol induced words of how _this_ is nothing, you prepare for the hurt of a casual dismissal, for all of the lies about what this isn't. You shake your arms free of her hold and you step back. Your legs hit the height of the bed, and your body drops in preparation for the fall.

When she coughs a sob, you almost stand again, but you don't; you wait.

"I can't do this," she says again, one hand rising to hit at her chest, the other stretching out towards you, "I can't… I can't be this person and…" she shakes her head, once, twice. "It's there, Brittany, all the time, and it won't go away, and I don't know what to do, I don't know how to…"

Her words are jumbled and you're seeking sense, you _are_, but it's hard to find the up to her down, it's hard to know what to say when you don't know what she's saying.

When she drops to her knees in front of you, you don't move, and when she tries to take your hand, you let her.

She doesn't speak to your eyes though, her gaze stays trained on your hand in hers, and her voice cracks and breaks when her words eventually reach you; "I don't know how to be _yours, _Brittany," she says, and her head drops forward, "and I just… _please…"_

She implores. Her eyes come up and they beg you to be there.

"I just _want_ to be yours."

And you pause. Or your heart stops. Or it breaks. Or it remakes itself.

"Santana," you say, and she bites her lip hard. You lift your free hand gently towards her, swiping back some of her crazy drunk-girl hair behind her ear, resting your palm against her cheek, "You don't have to ask for what's already yours," you whisper soft so she can hear you, "because for you to be mine, is _all_ that I want."

And she breaks.

She really breaks.

Her head falls forward into your lap and she cries and she cries and she cries. And you hold her. You hold her while she cries out the alcohol, while she sobs her way through the stupidity of this day and the stupidity of her everyday.

You just hold her.

You knew when you woke this morning that the hardness she sought would likely break her, you knew by the evening that she was going to pull herself apart… You just didn't know that when she finally fell, she would ask you to catch her.

Yet she did, and you did, and you swear once again to never let go.

…

In the quiet, she clings to you.

She isn't speaking, she isn't _anything_, and you stroke silent patterns through her hair as you wait for her to stitch herself back together again. The silence is something you appreciate; today has been so much - so _damn_ much - and you use this moment of inaction to process.

You place marks in your mind next to names like _Russell_ and _Eduardo_, and next to names like _Quinn_ you place as many marks as your mind can muster.

It's a lot.

You feel like tonight you saw something of Quinn that maybe she wouldn't be so keen to know you saw. Your eyes were clear and not hazed by alcohol, and you watched her switch through every area of manipulation to bring Santana to her knees. You saw just how she works and you witnessed the control she's so desperate to cling to.

You also think you witnessed her vulnerability, because to be so scared of losing something, especially control, to be so twisted by the need to hang onto it…

It makes you wonder who first took that control away; who in her mind bears the biggest mark against their name.

When Santana moves her head in your lap, you collapse all of your wandering thoughts onto her. And you close your eyes, and you sigh, and you ask if she's okay.

"I think I drank too much," she croaks out, and you think she did too.

"Can I get you some water?" you ask, and when she lifts her head and says _yes _and _thank you, _you shift yourself from the bed beneath and you stand up straight. You fetch her a glass from the bathroom and you watch as she eagerly drinks it all down. You ask if she wants another, and she shakes her head.

She looks up at you, she shrugs her shoulders, and her mouth drops down. "I should go…" she says, her face finding a frown, "…the fight I had with Quinn after you left, probably means she won't be looking for me, but…"

She shrugs her shoulder again, her eyes fall to the ground.

And you remember the bad call she made last night when her eyes dropped down to the ground and she insisted away from you was where she really needed to be. It makes you drop to your knees at her side, it makes you take her hand between your own with a surety you're certain of. "No," you say, and she looks at you in question. "Just stay here, okay?"

She looks so relieved, and her words when she asks if you're sure, hold none of your certainty.

"Yes I'm sure," you say, and for the first time tonight, your soft smile finds her, "we need to sleep San, and then, I think we really need to talk."

Because you do, really; and you watch her relief turn to resignation.

She nods her head though, she offers her agreement, "We really do."

When you stand, she stands with you, and you both find your way to the bed without words, or without worry about changing clothes to seek comfort. You lay down first and she shuffles next to you and places herself back against you, her hair tickling and making your nose scrunch. You breathe in deep and smell her though, you wrap your arms around her and pull her close, and you seek the only comfort you really need.

When she sighs and her body presses further back against you, you ask if she's going to be okay. She doesn't answer with words, you think she's saving her words for the morning, she just finds your hand and she wraps her fingers tight about it, and she pulls it close to her chest.

And in the peace, you both find sleep.

…

When the sound of your phone ringing jars you awake, you don't know if it's been minutes or hours since you slipped into sleep, you just know you're still holding Santana, and you smile before you sigh. You move your arm from around her and you roll to the side to find your cellphone, yet the sight of Quinn's name flashing up across your screen turns your stomach in an instant, and you sit up straight before you answer.

"Hello," you say, and you imagine it doesn't sound particularly friendly.

When she says your name, she doesn't sound particularly human. "…_I have the hangover from hell_" she informs you, and a part of you hope it really hurts. _"I don't remember anything after you left last night; I fought with Santana, but… After that it's all a little hazy. Have you seen her?"_ she asks, as if she believes she has the right to ask you anything.

You say "Santana?" and your eyes drop to the side to look at her.

She's awake and she's rolled onto her back, and she's looking up at you with the bleariest eyes ever. You move your hand to press a finger to her lips, and you try to communicate with your eyes who it is you're talking to. She bites her lip. You feel it against your finger.

"I haven't seen her since last night," you say, touching confusion, "maybe she went home with one of those guys?"

Silence greets you and you don't seek to fill it.

"_Are you coming down for breakfast?" _she eventually asks, and you think through your options. You don't know what Santana is going to want to do today - whether she will want away from all she said to you last night when buried beneath the loose lips of inebriation, or whether she'll be saying the same now that the day sits sober - but either way, you know that Quinn doesn't need to know where she spent the night. You don't even want her to suspect.

So you say _sure_. You say you need to sort yourself out, but that you'll see her downstairs in about twenty. It seems to satisfy her immediate interest and she accepts your answer at face value and says she'll see you then.

When you hang up, the display on your phone tells you that it's only just past 7am. You think quickly about whether to call Sam to join you downstairs, but you toss your phone to the side without dialling and waking him. You can handle Quinn on your own; you feel less intimidated by her this morning than you've ever felt. You also feel more belligerent towards her than you've ever felt before, but you're a master at the deadpan, and you're a champion at mustering disinterest, and you're sure you can sit through one final breakfast with her without letting your inner feelings slip out.

Besides, you want to see how she's going to play it. She doesn't know how long you were stood there watching last night, and you're going to be happy to stick to your original story of how you heard and saw nothing, but you expect her to say _something_.

You expect her to roll out yet more of that manipulation you're coming to know so well.

The hand against your back closes your eyes and your thoughts; you breathe in deep and you calm all of your expectations, and you turn your eyes to look at her again.

"Hey," she says, and even though it sounds all hoarse and croaky, her lips are attempting to smile at you. A little. Like she's sure but unsure and her moves are all tentative.

You smile back at her, yet you don't say your own _hey. _You ask if she's okay; you ask how she's feeling.

It drops her eyes for a moment and you watch her tilt her head to the side to consider; "How do I feel?" she echoes, her tone still hitting hoarse, "Like I got hit by a truck that then reversed back over me. Possibly more than once."

She pulls herself up to sitting, and you angle yourself so that you're facing her. She tries another smile, and you feel your nose twitch. "I have to go down to breakfast with Quinn," you tell her, and her face doesn't change. "Are you…"

You're not quite sure what to say. You know that last night your plan was to talk it all out this morning, but now that you're here in the morning, you're sure that Santana will no doubt have to dash and make good, and find her way onto that 11am flight.

She's watching you, waiting for your words, and you try again; "Will you go back to your room while I'm gone?"

Her face doesn't change.

"San?"

She shrugs her shoulder in response to you. Her forehead creases, yet still her lips don't drop down. "I think," she says, in that croaky whisper, "I probably should. We have an early flight and…"

Your eyes stay trained on her barely there smile.

"…if I miss it I'm going to have to find another way home. Not to mention the crap I'm going to catch from my family, and the insults from the Fabrays." She breathes in deep as if foreshadowing the severity of what she's going to say next, "I don't want to go though."

It comes out a rush, faster than you can think through the words, and you mimic the tentative lift to her lips. "You don't want to?"

"No. I want to stay with you. Do you…" Now her lips do drop. Her eyes drop. Her head drops. "…Do you mind if I stay?"

"I'll mind more if you don't." You offer a little lift to you right shoulder, you let your thoughts chase ahead of you, "There's plenty of room in the van; you could travel back with us and then, I don't know, we can drop you home later…"

Your words trail off because she looks uncomfortable, and you want to know why.

"What about Sam?" she asks.

"Sam? What about him?"

She bites her lip, the bottom one, and her eyebrows knit closer together, "After last night, he must think I'm such an idiot. Hell, I think I'm such an idiot. I'm sure he doesn't really want me riding home in his van."

You smile because she makes you.

You roll your eyes because you want to. Sam did have some words to say to you last night, but none of them were about Santana's idiocy. They were mostly words of caution, words which told you to be careful, and not to get hurt. "Sam really won't mind," you say, and your smile grows only larger.

"And, you don't mind, I mean…" she pauses, and you pause with her; you reach out and find her hand, you find the spaces between her fingers and you fill each of them with your own. "…It means more lying to Quinn, and I don't like asking you to lie…"

You think where Quinn's concerned it's not even lying. It's protection and safety, and a whole lot of things that are none of her business; no matter how much she insists otherwise.

You bite the inside of your lip before you say anything. You have so much waiting to be said, but you don't wish to start something right now which you'll have to walk away from, so you try and choose your words carefully, you say only what you can say now. "I don't like Quinn," seems to cover it, and it's exactly what you sound out.

She smiles at you. She shakes her head.

She shrugs her shoulder.

"Did you see a lot last night?" she asks quietly, and you guess she wants to start something now, whether it's time to or not.

"I saw lots I didn't like," you answer, and she dips her brow at your words, "I don't like her touching you San, I _really_ don't like it."

"Right," she says. And she stops. Her hand tightens around yours.

"It's okay though," you tell her, because for right now it is, "I'll go to breakfast and she'll know no different; I doubt she thinks I could lie if I tried."

She looks at you, she takes a deep breath and she pulls on your hand a little, "Don't be fooled Britt," she starts, "Quinn's got you measured a lot higher than you think; she wouldn't be so damn interested in you if she didn't see you as a threat."

"A threat?"

Her eyes drop to the bedspread, her other hand settles atop your hand that she's already holding, like she wants to doubly hold on; as if she wants to affirm her original hold on you. "Sure," she eventually says, not lifting her eyes back up to yours, "she probably feels her grip slipping; I'm not marching to the beat of her drum no more. The only thing different is you, Brittany, and Quinn's so not stupid."

She really isn't. You've studied her at work for the last three weeks, and you're almost certain that she's the least stupid person you know. She's perhaps the most troubled and messed up person you know, if her outfacing facades are anything to go by, but she's definitely not lacking in anything like intelligence.

You smile again, you join your remaining hand to the hand menagerie that's happening on the bedspread before you and you tell Santana that you're not phased, "…I can handle Quinn," you say, fully confident of that fact.

She looks at your jumble of entangled fingers and she smiles again, "I'm beginning to think you can handle anything, Britt."

You say _maybe_. The only thing you want to be able to handle is Santana, and you squeeze against her fingers again. "You're really going to stay?" you say, the thought slowly dawning on you, the realisation that she's making a choice; that she's choosing this time, and she's choosing you.

"If you really don't mind." And she smiles, kind of, around the croak that still sits in her voice; "I meant what I said last night, Brittany."

And you want to ask what specific. You want to ask everything.

You know though.

And you smile. Against the backdrop of the conversation you know this day is going to bring, you smile as large as you can manage, "I meant what I said too," you tell her, because you've never said anything truer.

All you really want, all you've wanted from almost the first minute you met her, is for Santana to be yours. Only yours. All yours. And this right here, this moment, no matter what circumstances try to reach out and taint it, is the moment you're going to fondly remember forever as the moment where she accepted that she wants just the same.

Not drunkenly, not in a fit of falling apart; just… She wants to be yours.

And you untangle your hands, and you lift yourself from the bed, and you go to the bathroom with a change of clothes and an agenda just forming. You kind of think that you're the perfect person to give Santana everything that she wants, and you know that she's perfectly poised to give you all that you want. And now, your only intention will be seeing that all of your wants are met.

…


	15. Raw And Naked Truths

A/N: I figure if I can make at least one Brittana shipper smile today I've done a good thing. So here's hoping one of you smile. And, as always, thank you for the reviews and the follows and the favourites. I love this fandom. So, so much. You the best people.

...

Your final breakfast of the weekend is about as uneventful as you can possibly imagine. When you arrived in the dining hall, you'd seen Quinn flanked once again by her father and by Eduardo, and like the time before when you'd seen her looking fragile, she'd been wearing dark glasses to cover her eyes and she hadn't removed them once.

You shared nothing that could even be called direct communication. Sure, you'd talked around a few issues regarding the schedule for the upcoming week; but she'd never really engaged you, and you sure as hell didn't seek to engage her. Even when Santana was mentioned, when Russell once again dragged his disrespectful words around her name, she hadn't sought your attention and you hadn't given it to her.

She'd mumbled something to her father about leaving Santana's things with reception, but aside from that, you're left feeling as if she only invited you down to breakfast so as you could watch her push her uneaten food about her plate.

Or, maybe, so she could check on your whereabouts.

Perhaps to confirm for herself that you're not wherever Santana has disappeared to.

You expected that when she pulled you in for a lumbering hug goodbye and faked out those ever present air kisses close to your cheek, that she would say _something_; that she'd insist you had to talk soon, that she'd foreshadow that moment with an ominous tilt to her tone. She hadn't though. And just a little, it throws you.

Last night you saw so much of what she's capable of.

You watched her pull on a thousand strings as she tried to manoeuvre Santana into the position she wanted her - a position below her - and you fully expected her to try yanking on your strings this morning. Yet she seems a shadow of herself, a shadow of the monster you imagined last night, and you swallow some of your venom.

You wish her a safe flight home. You actually mean it.

And you wonder.

All the way back to your room, you wonder some more about Quinn. About what it could take to make someone erect so many different designs of who they truly are. You wonder as much as you wonder about Santana, why she can't just be herself.

You wonder if she even knows who _herself _truly is.

It creases your frown all the way to your door, and you take a second before you open it to relax your features and release all of your wonderings. Because behind the door is Santana, and really, that means so much to you. It means more than all of the things you don't yet know, and you're certain that it means more than any of the things you're about to find out. You don't want to waste your time wondering about them, when at the end of the tale, you expect to be exactly where you are right now;

In love with Santana and just waiting to make her yours.

It's a thought which brings another pause when you pass through the door.

Whereas last night you had both slept above the covers, she's now asleep beneath them, and she's also removed her blouse. You can see it tossed on the side of the bed where you lay last night, and you can see the skin of her shoulders reaching up above the cover of the sheets.

The contrast in the colour makes you swallow.

The tint of her skin, the black of her hair, the crisp whiteness of the sheets.

You swallow again.

You remind yourself, you _insist_ to yourself, that this moment isn't yet the moment when you get to claim her fully and make her yours completely. Even if she is sleeping in your bed. Even if her arm is wrapped tight around your pillow.

Because this bed isn't really your bed, and that pillow isn't really your pillow, and she isn't really yours. Not yet; not quite. You need to turn your touches to words before you can turn them back to touches again, and it's important to you that you do this right. Not just to assuage your own fears, but to calm Santana too.

This isn't what she's used to. This isn't anything casual. And you want to show her the right way that this is everything better.

It's a weight which makes your footsteps heavy as you travel the path to the side of the bed.

And she's so beautiful.

Physically it's a beauty you can't compare; you love sunny days and sunsets and the shape of the universe, but… She's more than that. So much more. She's like the beauty behind the sunset, and you're sure that the shape of your universe is the same shape as her.

She's lying on her stomach, her head turned towards the door, and when you sink your weight down onto the side of the mattress, you watch her eyelids flicker. When her forehead creases, you reach out your fingertips and smooth her skin, and when her eyes stretch slowly open, you greet her with a smile.

Not giddy, not crazed with the unbound joy of loving, just… a small curve, a soft curve.

You say _hey_ and she curves her lips also.

"I fell asleep," she tells you, pulling your pillow closer into her body as she rolls onto her side to face you. "How was breakfast?"

"Okay," you say. "I don't think Quinn suspected anything, but it was kind of hard to tell. I think she got really messed up last night… She looked kind of rough around the edges."

It subdues her smile and you watch her eyes flick away from you, "I said some pretty mean stuff to her after you left. I wouldn't be surprised if she was trying to drown out the volume."

"She said some mean stuff too, Santana."

Because she did. More than once.

It doesn't change the expression on her face though, and you shuffle a little closer on the bed. You bring your legs up from the floor and you lie by her side, above the covers, your eyes caressing her face as you watch her struggle with words. When she bites her lip and stays silent, you reach out to touch her. Just your hand to her hand; just something to hold onto.

You whisper _San_ and her eyes come back to you, her fingers wrap around you. You tell her you have an idea, and she waits for you to elaborate. "I'm going to order room service," you tell her, "I didn't really eat downstairs, and you haven't eaten at all, and if these are my last few hours in the pre-penthouse, I think I should probably make the most of them." She doesn't answer and you prod her further; "You must be hungry too… I bet you didn't eat anything other than limes last night."

She closes her eyes and she groans, but you also see her grin. Kind of like a grimace.

"Can we not just forget last night ever happened?" she implores, covering her face with the corner of your pillow, and you wish you could answer _yes_. You just pull the pillow away from her though. You raise your eyebrow a little when she looks back at you, and again she groans. Her grin is less than a grimace now, though, and again you smile soft.

"But if we forget last night ever happened," you tell her, teasing your tone higher with logic, "then how are we going to remember to have breakfast together this morning? And I really want to eat breakfast with you, San, so."

She looks at you, her dimples crease, and she rolls away onto her back.

"Do you ever stop being amazing?" she asks, and you want to ask her the same.

Even now, even in a moment that could be morose with all the stories yet to be told, she has the ability to make you feel amazing.

You let the feeling pull you closer to her, you let it lift you up and hover you over her, and you let it press the smallest and sweetest of kisses to her lips.

It chases away the last of her grimace and all you find in her face is curiosity and questions when you pull back to look at her. "What was that for? She asks, her voice nothing but a croak and a whisper, but you don't answer. You kiss her again, just as gently, and then you tell her that you're ordering room service.

And she shakes her head. And she smiles.

And for the moment you feel amazing.

…

A feeling which lasts all through your second breakfast.

When you had rung down for room service, Santana had pulled herself up from the bed and gone to the bathroom, and when she'd returned, the ruins of last night's excesses had been wiped away from her skin. There were no more mascara traces left from where her tears had tracked her sadness, and her skin was clear and free from the mask of any remaining make-up. And she was still topless. Or shirtless.

And you couldn't help but smile.

When she asked to borrow a t-shirt, you thought about saying _no_, but the sight of her dressed in something of yours combated the distress of seeing her cover up her skin. You gave her an MTV shirt, nothing special, just something you lounge about in; but on her it had looked special, or it still looks special, and still you're smiling.

You manage to eat twice as much as you shuffled around your plate downstairs, and once you're done and you've loaded the empty plates back onto the cart, you collapse yourself fully along the length of the bed. You feel full, and you feel sated, and when Santana stretches out in that space alongside you, you feel for the moment content.

You know that words are coming, you know that the silence is the precursor to all that needs to be said, but for a moment you just rest, and you breathe, and you turn your head towards her and you reach out for her touch.

And she meets you, with her hand, and her fingers fit between your own, and you rest together, gazing, sharing the moment without sound.

When she takes in a deep breath, you speak. You tell her first that you text Sam; that he's aware of your super-secret change of plans, and he's happy to have her along for the ride. Next you tell her that you're leaving at lunchtime, just over two hours from now, and then you slip back into silence.

You watch her face. Her expression is passive, and her eyes are fixed on you, and you're not sure who's supposed to speak next. You're not sure how to lead into a conversation for which you don't have the directions to; you don't know if you should ask a question, you don't know quite what the question should be even if you were directing the course of conversation.

And so you wait.

Your thumb rubs soft over her fingers, and when she closes her eyes, you squeeze her hand. You say _hey_ and you tug a little, you bring her gaze back your way.

She goes to speak and then she stops, she opens her mouth and she closes it again.

"I really don't want to get into this," she finally whispers, and you offer her a smile.

Just small, just to soften the edges. "It can't be that bad," you tell her, because you really don't believe it can be. Yet her eyes drift again, and you watch as she worries at her lip with her teeth before she replies.

"I don't even know anymore, Britt," she sighs, "for so long I've felt like,"

"Like what?"

"Like this is all my fault; if I hadn't done the things I did back then, if I'd just been a better kind of person…"

Her words don't make sense yet, but you don't worry her about that. You keep your mind and your ears open, and you let her words saturate your senses. You pause when she pauses, and you keep your eyes on her when she speaks. "…if I'd just stayed away from him," she starts again, "then none of this would've ever happened."

Her gaze drops to your hand and you're still caressing her skin. "Who's him?" you ask, your voice gentle, yet her voice when she tells you _Finn_ is hard and brittle. You're not surprised to hear that name, you expected it has a part to play in whatever way this story goes, and when she speaks it, you don't react. You don't stop stroking her fingers, you don't let go of her hand.

You listen intently as she tells you about being thrust headfirst into Quinn's world after she returned to live with her father and abuela, and when she tells you about a maybe _crush_ or something like that - _I was only fifteen Brittany, and she was so fucking perfect_ - the beginning of the story starts to make sense. She tells you how she clung to Quinn to rid herself of Rachel; not just because of the song and the dance involved in being Rachel's friend, but also because of the capital G gay.

She lets go of your hand on the gay.

"It's so stupid," she tells you as she pulls herself up to sitting, "I never even touched a girl; I had a _boyfriend_ back home still, but…" she sighs, "…maybe I knew something was up. Maybe I looked at Quinn a little too closely, I don't know; but _she_ knew."

"She?" you ask to clarify.

"Quinn," she says, and you nod somewhat. "It was just little things at first, like, she suggested I wave a flag on the Berry float at the pride parade, she made dumbass digs all the time… Nothing concrete, you know? Just Quinn being Quinn, but…"

She bites her lip and stops her flow, and you take the time to rearrange your body. You sit upright the same as her, you cross your legs and you rest your hands in your lap. She waits for you to settle and then her words start up again, slow and unsure. She tells you how terrified she was of being labelled something she didn't know how to deal with; "Abuela already hated me, Britt, and if she thought… if she thinks…"

She shrugs her shoulder. She drops her head.

"The shit hit the fan right before our junior prom," she whispers next, her eyebrows dipping down to meet in a frown, "we were just out dress shopping, and Quinn was in full-on bitch mode, and… I wasn't even _looking_ at her," she insists, her eyes coming up again, wide with old fear, "but she just blew up. She screamed at me, Britt, in the changing room of some fancy assed department store, she called me a…"

She breathes in really deep and you watch her shoulders rise and fall.

"…She called me a _dyke,_ she said I needed to stop mooning all over her like some lovesick _lesbian_ because people were starting to talk, and there was no way she was going gay friendly, just to make me feel better about being mostly an orphan…"

You widen your eyes, yet you hold your tongue. You listen to the words of Quinn's long gone tirade and the most that you do is clench the hands in your lap into the shape of two fists. You hold them tight together as Santana brings the story back to Finn; she tells you how Quinn and he played the perfect puke-worthy couple, how Quinn's big dream was to be the virgin bride to Frankenstein's flubber-monster, and how everybody just _adored _them, and how…

When she stops again, she doesn't breathe deep. You almost swear she's stopped breathing all together. Her eyes are closed, her own fists are clenched tight, and you know that she's fighting with something inside. You say _San_, just quietly, just…

She looks at you, her eyes watered down and weary, and she speaks it:

"I fucked him, Britt."

Her first confession.

Hard and breakable.

Nothing nice.

"I just wanted to show her how wrong she was; I just… I wanted to shut her up."

And you get that. You understand her intention. You see how one step led to another, how her fear led to Finn; yet you wonder;

"He did that?" you ask, because, if Finn was a part of the perfect couple, if the dream was Quinn, then…

"I told you; he's a fucking douche. I didn't even have to try. After all of Quinn's teasing, he was desperate for some pay off…" she shrugs her shoulders again, and you watch as they slump down. "And I knew how wrong it was; I know better than that, my _mom_ raised me better than that, but… I just…"

"You were scared?" you say, and her eyes fix tight on your own.

Her silence says _terrified_ yet her words don't come.

When they do arrive they ignore your ask and return to her wrongdoing. She tells you that not only did she do the deed, she delighted in telling Quinn all about it afterwards; "I was a real piece of work, Britt; go big or go home and I had no home left to go to."

You say nothing because you're thinking it through.

Your mind is spinning and all the little pieces are fighting hard to find a place and, "Is that why?" you ask after a moment, because, you wondered at Quinn's first loss of control, yet this seems…

So _high-school._

Just a continuation on, or backwards, of the things that Rachel had already told you.

She looks at you with a narrow gaze and you elaborate. "Is that why Quinn… Is that why she's…"

You stumble on the words and she shakes her head _no. _

"I wish it was as easy as that."

"There's more?" you ask, and this time her head confirms the _yes. _

She tells you that for all of Quinn's superior intelligence, she made the stupidest mistake of her life at the time it counted the most; "She did what she always does," she continues, her voice dropping low, "she clung tighter to control. She gave it up to Finn on prom night; I guess she figured she was proving who he really belonged to… Like I cared a crap about Finn."

Again she stops, and you watch as she twists her fingers together in her lap.

You want to reach out to her and calm her worry, but you sense she doesn't want that.

When her voice picks up the story, her tone has meandered her way towards methodical, as if she's recounting the words from a page, and not moments of memory; "She was too intent on making a point to think about protection," she says, and your eyes widen as your mind makes a leap…

A tentative leap.

"She got pregnant?" you whisper, and her nod speaks her answer.

It brings silence. It brings a moment.

Because…

"But…"

You say. You think. Because there's no baby.

And she looks at you. So deep it hurts.

"She was actually _happy_ about it," she tells you, her voice stretched thin and distant, "we were barely speaking, but she took the time to tell me; she honestly thought she was going to be living her dream, and…"

"What happened?" you ask her, and her eyes drop away from you. Her words harden.

"Her parents happened. Her _dad_ happened." You watch her fists clench again, and you force yourself to hold your hands back from her; "He already had his sights trained down the line on this election," she carries on, "and there was no way he was having his oh-so-precious and picture perfect daughter, knocked up and marrying Finn Hudson."

Her face has twisted into a tight scowl, and she sneers out her next words, the ones which tell you just how much of a hypocrite Russell Fabray really is, "They're so big with religion," she says, "such fucking right-wing moralists, yet they had Quinn flat on her back and aborting her baby, with barely a backwards glance. I swear Britt, all he cared about was no one knowing."

Your mouth is open.

Actually hanging open, because.

"He did what?"

She looks at you and her scowl still dominates her face; "It gets better," she insists, and you know that she means the exact opposite. And your mouth stays open in disbelief. She tells you how Russell was too worried about being discovered to have Quinn book into a local hospital or a clinic, even under a different name and with a falsified admittance note, and how he had someone come to the house, and how something fucked up…

"…I don't know what exactly," she says, shaking her head again on a story that's not hers, "but Quinn ended up in the emergency room with a suspected _ruptured appendix._"

You're hanging on her every word, the way that eyes are trained to rubberneck a tragedy. You just… It's not even something you know how to contemplate, it's not anything that would happen in any corner of your world. You're sure, even with your limited political knowledge, that republicans are meant to force women to not have abortions; not the other way around, yet here you are, hearing a tale of the most twisted proportions where exactly that happened.

And it rocks you. And it shocks you.

And when Santana says they broke Quinn then, you guess she means in every sense.

"…It was all she ever wanted Britt, or all she thought she wanted, and we took that from her. First me, with Finn, then her dad, and then whatever fucked up physician they brought in to butcher her womb…"

Her words are hateful and they're self-directed, and you're still too intent on taking it all in to reach out to touch her. You just sit back on your haunches, you drop your head for the moment, and you wonder at this world you've stumbled into.

A world where nothing is as it seems, and where the people who are supposed to care the most are only capable of inflicting the most damage.

When you raise your head back up, her eyes are fixed on you.

And you open your mouth. And you only find mute.

Because what do you say to all of that? At what point can you even begin to make any of that okay?

Your head is reeling, fixing together scraps of information to fashion a whole which only makes you reel even more. You just can't get your mind around it, you can't make any of it make sense. Because who would even do that to their own daughter? To anyone's daughter?

You shake your head to change the view, and you swallow the lump in your throat which tastes like bile. She's still watching you, waiting, and you force yourself to make a sound;

"That's…"

Just one sound, before you run out of words again.

Yet she nods. And she agrees.

"Not so awesome now, huh?" she says, and you feel every inch of her guilt.

It's heavier than the weight of your anger and it hits you harder than the force of your disgust. She blames herself for all of this, from the beginning to the end, and she's so wrong, so incredibly wrong.

You don't argue her awesome, because it's neither the time nor the place, but you do find the movement in your limbs again, you do reach out your hand and slide it into her lap to attach to one of hers, "It isn't your fault," you say firmly, because it's the most important thing you think you can find to bring voice to, "it's a really terrible thing Russell did, Santana, but it's not your fault."

Her fingers lie pliant beneath yours, and when you squeeze gently, she doesn't squeeze back.

She shrugs her shoulder, barely, just a slight hint of a move, and she slides her eyes down to stare at the duvet, "But I started the ball rolling," she says, her voice finding resigned, "and that's something which Quinn will never forgive."

You don't doubt her, not at all, but Quinn's forgiveness is not your immediate concern.

Not when Santana is sat so unforgiving before you.

"It's not your fault," you say again, and again when you squeeze her hand, she doesn't squeeze back.

…

You don't ask Santana to divulge anymore detail in the long minutes of silence you sit together on the bed; you don't ask how Rachel slips into the tale, you don't ask how Quinn went from blaming Santana to taking her into her bed… You don't ask anything. You have the foundations now, you can see the scaffolding and you can imagine all the different ways the story might be built up around it.

You're willing to wait though. You just, you want to ease this weight first.

You know that you can't just lift the burden of shame from her shoulders, but you also know that you can do something; you can show her in your own way that none of her words have changed the way you feel about her, not one little bit. In fact, you're only aware of more depth when you examine your heart and measure its beat.

You still feel the awesome, only now that's compounded by a different sense of awe, one where you wonder at how one person can carry so much and still be so special. You feel like every life story she's told you so far has a sad or bad ending, and still your only want is to make it better. To make her yours, to make her whole, to make her happy.

You just want her to be able to be _Santana._

Because Santana to you is someone so awesome.

When she sighs and says _bathroom_, you release her hand and you let her go, and when you check your phone there's a message from Sam, asking if you can leave soon.

You forgot you were going anywhere.

The thought of a six hour drive is nothing you want to consider right now, but you know Sam is eager to get on the road, you know that he's eager to get home to Mercedes; you're just not so eager to get Santana back to that place where people only wait to maul her sadness.

You text him and tell him that you can get going soon, though. You relay the news to Santana when she returns from the bathroom and you watch her steel her shoulders, you watch her wind her arms across her chest and you catch the almost imperceptible nod she gives to say that she heard you. When you tell her that Quinn mentioned leaving her things down at reception, she asks if Sam could possibly collect them for her.

"Someone will no doubt be checking up on me," she says, her expression blank, "it'll give them something to think about when they say a guy picked up my things."

You accept her words and you send another message to Sam, detailing Santana's request, and then you collect your own things together from your pre-penthouse suite. You've only stayed here for the duration of two nights, yet you feel as if so much has changed since you first walked through the door to this room.

And you take a moment.

You walk backwards through the memories from this morning, to last night, to Friday night and to study notes. You remember the touch of her skin beneath yours and you remember all of the promise laid out before you. And you smile.

Because so much has changed, yet nothing has changed.

You throw your packed tight bag across your shoulder and you turn to face her; and even in last night's skirt and shoes and your mismatched t-shirt, she's still the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. Even hiding behind hurt memories and the disillusions of her days, you can see all that she is and all that she will be, and again you smile. At her.

For her.

You hold your hand out, you tilt your head to the side; "Are you ready to go?" you ask, and you wait and you watch as she considers. You can see that she wants to say _no_, and you imagine her wish to get back to where you're taking her to is no stronger than your wish to take her there, yet she shrugs her shoulder, she takes enough steps forward to be standing at your side, and she reaches her hand to yours.

When you squeeze this time, she squeezes back, and you don't let go all the way to the van.

You bypass reception and its rules about checking out and you just lead her to your parking space and to the waiting face of Sam. He smiles wide, he tells Santana he put her case in the back, and he holds the door for you both. He say's he'll drive and you happily let him. You take your spot, in the middle, Sam sat one side and Santana the other, and when he turns the key in the ignition, your right hand drops, you seek her left, and you lock yourselves tight together.

…

The first hour passes silent and sombre. Sam tries to initiate several different tracks of conversation, but neither you nor Santana act eager to reply and he finally turns up the radio and you all sit in the silence. At the two hour mark you break for coffee, and Santana takes the opportunity to slip into the back and change last night's skirt and heels into today's leggings and sneakers. You go with Sam.

You tell him your order, and then you wait with him at the counter and you wait for what he has to say. You know there'll be words, you know he must have something to say or some wisdom to impart, yet when his words come, they're not at all what you expect:

"I like her," he says, and you just look him, your eyes questioning further. He smiles lopsided and he nudges his shoulder into yours, "I know I said all that stuff last night about being careful," he continues, "and I still mean all of that; I just want you to know I get why you like her."

"You do?" you ask, because so far Sam hasn't seen even half of Santana. He's seen a lot of the downside, and sure, he's joked about the upsides, but in actual time spent, there hasn't been much. He just nods happy though, and you wait while he pays for your drinks. He hands you yours and Santana's, and he sucks his bottom lip between his teeth as he thinks on his answer.

"I do," he says, pausing just a moment to tell the cashier to keep the change. "Do you remember when me and Mercedes first started hooking up?"

"Sure," you say, your lips lifting on the memory, "and you tried to keep it a secret because you thought…"

"We thought Mercedes parents wouldn't approve; heck, you know what half our school was like, we didn't think anyone would approve." He rolls his eyes and you remember all of their worries. Not that your town was obviously or overtly concerned with colour, but Sam was the school's star quarterback, Mercedes was the resident diva, and them getting together was sure to cause some sort of reaction from the lowest forms of humanity at your school. Mercedes parents were also a real concern; they had definite dreams for their baby girl, and a blonde haired, blue eyed, elastic lipped dreamer wasn't high on the list of what they wished for.

"That all turned out okay, though," you tell him, because it did.

"Of course it did," he says, "and you know why?"

You do. Because Mercedes parents are awesome, and they rearranged their dreams to meet their daughter's, and because no amount of snide comments hidden behind school lockers could put a dent in a dreamer's smile. You let Sam answer his own question though; you know he wants to tell it his way.

"Because we love each other," he says, his face beaming, "and love conquers all."

You smile, you knock your hip into his as you turn towards the door, "That was really inspirational," you tell him, your face dead panning the truth.

He rolls his eyes, and you wait while he pauses on getting the door, "I see what's between the two of you," he says, and his voice slips from a smile to someplace serious, "you really, really like her Britt, don't you?"

And you love her. And you say _yes. _

"And she feels the same, doesn't she?" he asks, but it's not even a question anymore. She's here, with you, exactly where she wants to be. And you nod, you confirm, and again he smiles.

"So I like her," he says, shrugging his shoulder and pulling at the door, "there's never anything not to like about love, right?"

And he names it out loud before you even have, and you find a smile that carries you all the way back to the van.

…

By the third hour, long after you've drained the last of your coffee, Sam makes Santana smile for the first time. You and him have been exchanging nonsense for the last half hour with Santana sat silent by your side, concentrating on the bitterness of her black with no sugar drink, yet no one ever really resists Sam for long, and once he started to direct half of his comments towards her, she'd slowly found words and ways to reply.

It was when he switched up the radio station to _Country Classics_ - _All Day, Everyday_ and began to sing along like a born and bred redneck, that her eyes had first come alive. She'd shifted a little in her seat to turn her gaze his way, and you'd felt her shoulder shake soft against you before you heard her laugh; small and timid, yet definitely a sound shaped around joy.

Sam had caught it too and he'd flicked his eyes from the road, across to her, and he'd exaggerated his voice even more, his lips pushing out large to croon along to a song about a man with a dog and a broken heart. He took one hand from the steering wheel and flounced it about in front of himself before clutching at his chest and pouring all of his emotion into the climax of the song, and when you felt Santana's shoulder nudging against you again in a silent shake of finding him humorous, you turned yourself away from Sam to face her.

Her hand was up to her mouth and there were crinkles creasing the skin at the corner of her eyes, and you smiled straight at her, large and true, and her eyes flicked to you and her hand dropped and,

"That's so_ awful_," she said, shaking her head in Sam's direction.

And you laughed, and you nodded,

And you joined in; your eyebrows lifting up and down before you harmonised loudly the last line with Sam about how his woman left and he might be dead… and she stared, her eyes wider, and she laughed.

She really laughed.

She said _God, Britt_, she leaned into you, and you smiled like the cat all covered in cream.

…

Somewhere after the fourth hour, you switched seats with Sam to take a turn driving. It meant a distance between yourself and Santana that you didn't much care for, but as your eyes left hers and trained instead on the road in front of you, it created a space for a new dynamic. It paved the way for Sam to work his lips into the easiest of grins as he truly interacted with Santana for the first time. They've been around each other quite a bit the last three weeks, but aside from the brief moment at your apartment where Santana had presented Sam with a bottle of champagne and a drooping bouquet of flowers, it's only ever been inside of a work environment. This is different.

This is real life.

This is you and your best friend and the woman you're in love with, and you can't help but bite your lip around an impish grin as you look across at them; Sam is leaning back in his seat and his feet are up in front of him on the dash, and his hands are tapping away to the beat of the pop station you switched the radio to, and Santana…

You bite your lip a little harder.

She's not smiling quite as largely as Sam has managed, but she is smiling, and her eyes are engaging, and she's telling him why, in her opinion, directing on stage is a tougher call than directing from behind a camera. Her voice is pitching different to her normal tone, and you turn the radio down a little so you can fully focus on her words.

You wish you could watch her make them, but your eyes need to concentrate mostly on the road, so you settle for listening instead and just weighing up what she says against what you know.

You've never really thought about it before, the twenty takes versus the one take. With Fondue for Two, you and Sam had winged it most of the way and ended up flying high… yet, now at MTV, there is more structure, there is more story-boarding and planning, and cues you have to follow. You're not sure if that makes it easier to be directed, but you can see perhaps that maybe it makes it easier to direct.

When Sam taps you on the knee and asks you to weigh in, you flick your eyes across again. You lift your shoulder a little, you drop it back down, you tell him the way you just thought it in your head. "Also," you say, your eyes looking past him to find Santana, "I think it probably depends on who the director is. Some are idiots, some are probably awesome."

You see her eyebrow rise and fall before your gaze goes back to the road ahead, and you hear Sam offer agreement before Santana speaks again. Her words are directed at Sam rather than at you, but your ears don't stop listening to her flow. "Britt makes a good point," she says, and you smile without looking, "but I still stand by what I said; behind the camera you can disguise the idiocy. All you need is a good editor, a good producer…"

She carries on her point until it turns towards the technical, and even though you concentrate more on the forming of her words rather than what her words actually mean, you can hear her belief and the insistence behind all that she says. It encourages you to sneak another peek and you're not disappointed. Even when Sam argues that an editor can't make something out of nothing, she won't lay her point down, and even if you don't agree - even if you're not a hundred percent sure if you agree or not - there's something about hearing her speak this way that does something to you. It does a lot of something to you.

When Sam concedes and she laughs and she tells him she's only playing with him, it does a whole lot of something else entirely to you.

You don't have much time to dwell on it though.

Sam reaches across to turn the radio back up, and you guess it's to drown out the sound of her crowing, but… You think maybe she forgets herself.

You think maybe she remembers herself.

You don't have time to think, because Sam is singing, and your eyes are on the road, and it's _all of the hits, all of the time_, and.

You're sure you swerve the van just a little when you hear her.

It's not a big moment, there's no orchestra swelling in the background to sound it out as something special, yet your hands do slip on the steering wheel. You actually feel as each of the muscles in your face stretch out into a smile and you're certain that your eyes are alight as you turn your gaze to her again.

Sam has stopped singing. His mouth is hanging open.

And, _wow._

And she stops.

"What?" she asks, but your eyes are back on the road and Sam answers instead.

"You have a _really_ good voice," he tells her, above the sound of the now unaccompanied radio, "do you sing a lot?"

"No," she answers, and your eyes flick across again. She's twisting her fingers together in her lap and you think that's the end of it, but she speaks again, to Sam; "My mom was a singer; an _amazing_ singer. I'm just…"

She trails off and you wish you were sitting next to her and you wish you could take her hand and,

"Just like your mom?" Sam fills in, and the corner of your lips lift, just a little.

You hear Santana say _I wish_, and your gaze returns to look her way. You expect to see a hint of melancholy, but the corner of her lip is lifting slightly higher too. "I might be able to carry a tune," she continues, almost matter of fact, "but my mom could literally blow people away with her voice; have you heard Berry sing?"

The mention of Rachel surprises you even more than the easy mention of her mother, and if it wasn't for the fact that you're currently doing eighty on the freeway, your sure that your eyes would be fixed on her face, studying her features and reading her reactions to all of the free flowing words that she's finding to speak. You are doing eighty on the freeway though, and hurried flits of fancy are all that your eyes can manage.

"Not really," Sam answers, leaning forward and turning the radio back down. "I heard she's pretty good though."

"Pretty good doesn't even come close; she's out of this world." When you glance across again, you see Santana shrug her shoulder and find her smug smile; "My mom was even better though. Ask Berry if you don't believe me; she was the best."

You don't know if that's true, or if it's just the overblown and biased adoration of a daughter caught up in the greatness of one she's lost, but either way you smile really large when you catch her eye. And she smiles really large back at you.

You bite your lip, you turn your attention back to the road.

"Do you have any recordings?" Sam asks, and you hear the van fall silent. You search for something quick to say to head off an uneasy answer, but again Sam speaks before you; "You should probably hear Mercedes sing, anyway," he states earnestly, "if you really want to hear something amazing."

Her quiet continues for just a second more before she answers him, and when she does, you can only hear the faintest echo of despair in the distance. She tells him she's not really an expert, that she probably doesn't even know what she's talking about, but, "Sure," she says, her voice sounding louder to silence the echo, "I'd love to hear your girl sing some time. She said she's starting her final year at UCLA, right?"

The conversation continues at your side, and you only speak up occasionally to offer murmurs of agreement or little add-ons to Sam's words. You don't even count the minutes driving or the road signs as you pass them, you're just lost in this ease of integration where two of your favourite people are finding ways to like each other. You bop along to the soft beat of the radio, you tap your fingers happily against the steering wheel as you eat up the ground beneath you.

And then…

Because.

You feel it in your tummy first. Like the start of an ache which needs your attention.

Sam says words to you about keeping the van tonight, he says you can drop him home first and then you can pick him up for your afternoon meeting with Holly tomorrow. It's the only appointment you have, mostly to go over Friday's show and to discuss this week's schedule, and you say _sure,_ you say that it sounds like a plan.

When you pull up at the sidewalk outside of his place, you exit the van, you hug Mercedes, and you feel the flush when she spots Santana sat inside the van and raises her eyebrow your way. She waves past your shoulder, she tells you that you need to talk, _soon_, and then she urges Sam and his bag inside the lobby to their building.

And then…

Because.

You feel it everywhere; the need to not let her go, the sadness at the realisation you have to.

"Hey," you say when you're sat back behind the steering wheel, and you smile at her, small, and she smiles at you, smaller.

"Hey," she echoes, and again you think you hear the hint of her despair.

"I don't know where you live," you tell her, "you're going to have to direct me, okay?"

But she doesn't answer, she just bites her bottom lip and her eyebrows dip down.

You don't turn the key in the ignition, you pause your hand and you slump a little in the direction of the dash. You sigh. You wish.

"San," you say, and it's almost silence, yet she looks at you, like a wish come true, and you think, _why not, _you think, "no one knows where you are, right?"

And she _looks _at you. She shakes her head slowly, back and forth on the _no._

"So, if you don't go back, now, like, maybe…" You feel like your words are hiding, almost scared to be said, and you breathe deep, you _look_ at her, "…Do you want to stay with me," you say, "tonight, at mine… If you want to?"

And it sounds like a wish too timid to be true.

Yet,

"Really?" she asks, sounding just as timid as you.

"If you want to," you repeat, because you think you know what she wants.

Her eyes drop down to her lap, they close, they rise, they meet you head on. "I want to," she tells you, barely above a whisper, and you turn the key in the ignition, and you turn the van towards home.

…

Once you stand back inside your apartment, you realise again just how much things really and truly have changed; not in your apartment. Your neighbour has Lord Tubbington, so nothing is out of place from how you left it, but everything else has changed. You've changed, or your insides have shifted, and you feel a thousand miles away from the girl who left here on Friday.

You feel stronger. You feel surer. Like good change.

Like, all of the secrets and sound-bites could have ripped away your certainty, but they haven't, not at all, they've only reinforced the feeling that you're going to make all of this better. You don't have a plan, but then, you don't need a plan - you're Brittany S Pierce and you can slay any situation on the fly, and this situation, with all of it's sickness and regrets, is a situation you are determined to resolve.

You just don't know how yet. But you have a start; you have Santana, here, with you, and it's enough to make you smile through all of the changes.

You take her suitcase from her hand and you sit her on the sofa, and for a minute you just look at her, framed inside of your home, and again it feels like a wish. And you smile at her, and you drop your eyes, and you ask if you can get her something to eat, or to drink, or,

"Do you know what I really want, Britt?" she asks, and you lift your eyes, and yeah, sure, you think you know, but you shake your head, you wait for her words. "If it's okay," she begins, still timid with her wants, "I'd love to take a shower."

And you pause, and you bite the inside of your lip.

"A shower?" you ask, and she nods her head.

"I still feel gross from last night and…"

She pauses. You bite the inside of your lip again. "Wait here, okay?" you tell her, and you think of something better.

…

The shower is in the main bathroom, next to the kitchen, and as far as showers go, it's a pretty awesome one. It has super power jets and it's just perfect for when you want to blast away the stresses of the day in one quick flurry of ferociousness, yet…You feel like Santana has more stresses than any one day could ever encompass, and you want to wash them all away, one by one, and you want…

You know exactly what you want as you fill the tub in your en suite.

You don't have a shower in here; there was one when you moved in, but you afforded the renovation as soon as you could, and now you have one of those antique style baths with the freestanding feet and the taps in the middle and… You love it in here. You can soak your muscles for hours after a hard dance with Mike, you can lose yourself in a book as you sink beneath the bubbles, and you can forget, for as long as the water runs hot, everything else except the feel of serenity.

It's a feeling you want to give to Santana; it's something of yours you wish to share.

When you return to the front room, she hasn't hardly moved at all. She's still sitting on the sofa, only she's removed her shoes, she's got her knees up in front of her, and she's wrapped herself up tight again. Her eyes are lost in the distance of the wall and for a moment you just stand and watch her, only moving forward when she pulls a giant sigh from the depths of her soul and closes her eyes shut tight. You want to banish whatever thoughts are touching at her frown, and you wrap a soft smile around your lips as you stand yourself in her eye-line. You say _hey _and her gaze leaps to meet you, her eyes flitting about your face before she finds a smile of her own and a quiet _hi._

You hold your hand out and her legs slide forward until her feet touch the floor and her fingers find yours and you tug, just gently, just enough so that she stands from her spot and lands right before you. "About that shower," you say, and her eyebrow dips a little on the quizzical, yet she doesn't speak to question you, even when you've pulled her along to stand before the open door to your bedroom.

Her eyes do widen slightly, and you stop, and you turn to fully face her, and you hope you've got this right. "I have an en suite," you say, "with a really cool bathtub, so."

Her eyes don't drop from yours, and you sense a million and one words she wants to say to you; more stories to tell and more questions to ask, yet again she says nothing. She nods, barely perceptible, and you lead her again inside of your room. Her gaze doesn't travel the walls this time and she doesn't pause to look at your collection of old photographs, she simply follows you mute until she stands in the middle of the bathroom. Then she speaks;

She says _Brittany_ as if it's something special and you glance behind you, but it's still just a bath with some bubbles and a towel hanging waiting on the towel rack. You shrug your shoulder and you wonder _now what_; if you should back out of the room and leave her alone to find her peace and her privacy, if you should,

"I'm gonna…" you say, with still no thought forming.

Her fingers find yours again though, and you catch her silence. She's looking at you, you're looking at her, and you're so damn sure that you know what you both want, but you're not at all sure if either of you will be brave enough to say it.

When her free hand catches the bottom of your shirt, you stare deeper, you see the movement as she bites at her lip and you bite softly at your own; you think for a minute. You think of all the ways you've found to ease her and all the ways you've made it work.

You _know_ her. And you know which words to use;

"Assignment ten," you whisper, and her head tilts. Her eyes are curious and they give you confidence as you seek to find an elaboration; "It means more skipping ahead," you say, "and I haven't had time to prepare a lesson plan, but… I think, if you want to, awesome friends are definitely allowed to take baths together."

You watch the corner of her lip curl. You mirror her the same.

"You think?" she asks, her voice now a whisper.

You drop her hand and you step back, and you remove your shirt in one swift motion. You toss it to the floor without looking where it lands, and you lift your lips a little higher. "Sure," you inform her, cocking your brow slightly, "I'm just gonna grab another towel, so…"

You point to the bath, you point to her, "Okay?" you ask, and she nods her _yes_.

…

You take a moment when you're stood in front of the linen cupboard, just to get your bearings. Sure, when you were running the bath for Santana, you harboured some far off fantasy where you'd be sinking beneath the suds together, but in all honesty, you didn't really expect it to happen right now. You weren't lying when you said you haven't prepared a lesson plan, and you're totally winging it as you reach your hand out to grab another towel.

You pause. You swallow.

You turn back to walk the way of the bathroom.

And you pause again. And you swallow.

And you're not even sure of the words to think it. Just, you've uncovered so much of Santana this weekend, you delved inside some of her most closely guarded secrets and…

She's now naked.

In your bathtub.

Naked.

You swallow again as you re-enter the room and your eyes fall everywhere except for the tub as you hang your towel up over the top of hers. You stand there what feels like a full minute studying the thread count, and it's only when she says your name the way that she does, that you turn a little and find her eyes.

The bubbles you added to the water cover everything below her neckline, but you still feel your cheeks darken towards pink, you still feel the shy as she silently studies you; "You okay, Britt?" she asks, her voice low, and you feel your nose scrunch up.

You feel your insides scrunch up and slowly release.

By the time you've turned to fully face her, you've slid your leggings down past your calves and you bend slightly to pull them over your feet before you stand straight before her. When your hands go behind your back to release the clasp to your bra, her eyes fall away from you and you can't help but smirk just a little. She's as nervous as you are, no matter what you both want, and it's enough to make you as naked as she is. Your underwear pools at your feet and you take a step towards the bath, and her eyes flit up, and her eyes flit down, and,

"Should I sit behind you?" you ask, and the _yes_ she offers in return is barely above a squeak.

She shuffles forward slightly and when your skin slides into the water behind her, you hiss just a little from the heat. It's not too hot, you have it pretty heated yourself when you're taking a soak, but the change from cold to warmth still stuns you. It encourages you to lower yourself slowly down as you seek a spot behind her. Your legs slip either side of her, and you suck in the air as your skin grazes against hers beneath the water and you find a position to settle into.

There's no sound except for the sloshing of the water and the heaviness of your breath and,

"Britt," she says, cutting through all of the noise in your head, "do you mind if I sit back a bit?"

You don't mind. A lot.

You lift your arms and your hands find her shoulders, and you pull her into you. Her back against your front and the bubbles all around you. When she sighs you feel the movement - everywhere - and your thoughts race to warnings about electricity and water and the danger of mixing the two. Except, she settles and it doesn't feel dangerous. It feels like assignment number ten should feel; like, her kisses and her smiles and all of the other things which seem to come natural to you. As natural as sliding your hands beneath the surface to find a place on her stomach, and as natural as the movement which brings both of her hands down to rest atop yours.

You can't remember a time when you've done anything quite like this before. You haven't bathed with someone since… Well, probably since you were younger and your sister still toddled and you'd make her laugh for hours with the games you could find to play in the tub with her toys and a whole lot of bubbles. You still have the same amount of bubbles encasing you, but this isn't a bath filled with laughter. It's different to that, and you've never done anything like this with anyone else before.

You've slipped inside showers and you've stared and shared naked with a whole lot of… With a _select_ few people, and it's been the prelude or the conclude to many of your naked adventures. But a bath; and before you've even shared and stared at the naked…

This is different.

And as much as the continued silence should provoke the serene, your heart is hopping all over the place. Because what do you say to the girl you love when she's naked and wet and resting against you, and you're naked and wet and,

"Brittany," she says, and your whole body hums. You wait for more, yet for a moment she seems content to trace slow circles against your palm and leave you guessing at what her words will be. When she eventually whispers that she's never done this before, you smile behind her and you confirm the same.

"Me either," you say, catching her fingers and stilling her circles. She shifts her body and you breathe deep, and when she twists her head to look up at you with her eyebrow raised in question, you confirm it further, "This is my first ever awesome friend bath," you tell her, and you sight her dimples as they crease her cheeks.

She turns her face away from you and she settles back against you, and again you hum, and you feel the current flowing through you. You feel her toes touch against yours and you flinch through a tickle. "The last time I took a bath with someone," she says, scraping her toe along the sole of your foot and making you flinch further, "was probably with Rachel."

Your eyes widen on the words because for a second you forget. And then you remember; "When you were like, five, right?" you ask, setting sense to her confession.

"Something like that. We pretty much did everything together when we were five."

You think of six and seven and all the things you did with Sam once he became your very best friend; there's no bath to remember, but you're sure you shared just about everything else back then. You were inseparable and you were happy and…

"Do you ever miss her?" you ask, and even though you expect her to laugh around some snark or a sniped out comment, she doesn't. She circles your palm again and her sigh passes through you.

"There's nothing to miss," she tells you, her voice solemn. "We're both so different to who we were, and so much bad water has capsized the bridge; it's better not to think about it, Britt. I don't…"

"But you do," you say, and this time it's her who flinches.

"I didn't," she replies, and you fallback to silent.

You think that she means she didn't before you came along to stir up her stories. It reminds you of the feeling at the conference centre on Saturday; that sense that even though you wish nothing more than to ease her woes, at times you can't help but hurt her. Just by being here, just…

Like, as much as you want to build her up, you're also kind of breaking her down.

You turn your palms up now and you link your fingers until your holding her hands and you fight your way through this sad kind of serenity; you look to lighten it a little.

"So," you say, squeezing her fingers between your own, "all those baths with Rachel; did you ever sneak a peek?"

"Britt!" she says, and you smile.

"What? We know now you're fond of the ladies, San, I just wonder if you first figured that out when you were splashing about with Ra-"

"Seriously?" she implores, cutting you off, and you smile a little wider. When she practically sits straight between your legs and turns to face you, you more than sneak a peek. You stare a peek. And she glares, and you bite your lip, and,

"So you didn't crush on Rachel, then?" you say, as serious as you can be when your eyes are still straining to stay on her chest and not meet her eyes. When you do raise your gaze she looks pissed, and you wiggle your eyebrows, and she turns away from you with gusto and slumps heavily back against you.

The force of her movement causes the water to break in waves, and although you're momentarily glad you tied your hair up in a bun, you lose your smugness when the water splashes up into your face and you're left spluttering behind her, wiping the water from your nose.

"I never crushed on Berry," she says, almost stern, yet you still smile. Even with half a bath of water up your nose, you still smile.

And you tell her, "I think after this bath, I'm kind of crushing on you."

And you place your hand back gently on her stomach, and you trace the slightest of grazes upwards, just tickling the base of her ribcage; teasing yourself as much as you're teasing her.

You find her silence with your words, and you know, like, you _know_ that right now her face will be attempting to cling on to the whole aggrieved persona she's trying to work… And you know she'll be failing miserably. You've taken study notes; you know how your touch moves her, you know how her face looks when it's caught up in the wonder of your caress.

So you touch her more. Not with an intent to take anything more than you've had before, but just to silently remind her for a moment of all of that wonder. You count her first three ribs before your hand dips down again, and when you slide past her navel and trace the line of her hips, you hear her catch her breath; you feel as she holds it tight inside.

You say _Santana_ and all she manages is a low-pitched _hmmm._

And you hold your hand still, and you unclench your toes.

Because you are Brittany S Pierce, and you are capable of great heroics and moments of awesome in amongst tragedy, yet… You're not Buddha. You're not the Dalai Lama.

You haven't transcended either want or desire.

And _God_ do you want Santana.

You bite your lip and bring your hands together to clench tight again to stop them from wandering. You breathe, you hold it. You slow count to ten. You do your best impression ever of meditation as you force the feeling down again.

Yet she shifts, like a realisation you can't fight, because her thighs slide against your thighs and her calf brushes yours, and her back arches slightly and your chest, or your breast, or the point of your desire scrapes an inch against her skin, and she,

"Britt," she says, her voice a livewire, and everywhere the air touches your skin, you feel the outbreak of goose-bumps. You clench every muscle you're aware of. You actually grit your teeth around some sound of an answer.

And her shoulders shake.

And…

"I'd say you're _definitely_ crushing on me."

And.

You're not sure if you shake your head first, or if your eyes widen first, or if your hands unwrap and you're poking her in her sides, or if this is her payback for the Rachel jibe, or if she's turning… or…

You stop. You know you stop.

You are stopped. And staring. And as much as you feel her body pressed against yours, as much as her rotation has turned her front to find your front, all you can think is her eyes; all you can feel is her eyes. Like, she's feeling you too, like, you've never been so deep inside of someone and…

Your eyebrows slide close together, and your mouth drops open, because.

"Brittany," she says, and your whole being moves. _She_ moves.

You.

Against you. The water sliding her higher across your skin until her lips rest in that space before your lips and, "I'm crushing on you too," she says, and her breath touches yours, and her breasts press against you and your hands.

You're gripping the sides of the tub.

"Okay," you say, and it's a croak, and she smiles.

She rubs her nose against yours and your insides scrunch up again.

She says _so bad_ and she turns back away from you. You feel the shift, you feel everything, and all you can think is that it feels so good. That _she _feels so good.

Yet you say nothing. Because she's crushing on you, _so bad_, and your words have all walked out on you. And you can't say it with touches and you can't say it deep inside a kiss. You say nothing. Even when her hands peel yours from the sides of the bath and she brings them back down to find a handhold on her stomach, you still lose your words inside of your silence.

You let your breaths rest alongside the pattern of her own and you wait for her to guide you towards words which she wants to be said. Like;

"Can I tell you something?" she asks after a time, and it sounds like something which she _needs_ to be said. Like she's found a hurdle ahead of this moment you're sharing, and it makes your smile slide aside to find a straight line of serious. You say _of course _and you tilt your head behind her.

"Back then," she says, "with Quinn," and you tilt your head further. "I want you to know, it wasn't… It never felt, like, _this_. I didn't…"

And you say, "I know."

You grip her fingers a little tighter inside of your hold. She grips tight back.

"I feel like you know so much," she continues, "but still…"

"But still, what?"

You only question her because her pause stretches close to silence again and you do want to know, yet the silence spreads out, and her sigh reverberates back against you.

You nudge her with your leg; your slip your skin against hers, and then she speaks.

"I just wish," she tells you, everything serious, "that I could just, that… I could make you _feel_ the way I feel."

And you think _I do_ and you dip your brow, and you ask her, "Like, how?"

"Like I don't know how to say it; or, I'm not brave enough, or…" Her fingers grip so tight to yours it pinches, and you lean your lips forward to press a kiss to the top of her head. You hold yourself there; for a moment, just to appreciate each inch of her bravery.

Yet she sighs again and you lean your head back.

"I just wish you could exist for a moment inside me," she whispers.

And you swallow, and you wrap your arms as tight around her as you can and you pull her as close to you as you can manage, and you want more than anything to make her wish come true. You want to feel how she feels, you want…

You swallow once more and you close your eyes and you soften your hold.

"One day, Santana," you say, and you've never heard the shaky tone that wraps around your words before, "I promise you…"

Yet. You don't know quite how to say what you want to say, you don't know how to promise her that one day you're going to love every single inch of hurt right out of her, that you're going to show her, and know her, and love her forever.

You've never made a promise like that before.

You've never felt a promise like this before.

So you pause, and she asks, "You promise…?"

And you smile, and you say it again, "I promise."

…

You rest soft in the silence after whispers of wishes and placations of promises, and the serenity you hoped to share with Santana is apparent in the way you lay with such ease as your fingers turn to wrinkles and your skin cools beneath the growing chill of the water.

The warmth where she touches you is enough to stave off your shivers, yet you're aware you need to move soon, and you move her with you. You shift your bodies until you're sitting upright, and you ask her to pass the jug from the other end of the tub. The shampoo and conditioner are in easy reach behind you, and you still possess the will to ease her.

You still want. Just, to show her.

When her eyes meet yours as she passes you the jug, you smile and your nose scrunches; she raises her eyebrow and you tell her _hey. _

"I'm washing your hair," you say next, and her lips creep up into an answering smile.

"You are?"

"I am," you affirm, nodding your head, "it's the only part of the lesson plan I remember."

"So there was a plan?"

"If I had a plan," you say, somewhere around a laugh, "then there would have been kissing by now; _naked_ kissing," you add, and both of her eyebrows raise.

You lean forward, as if to show her such a kiss, yet instead you turn your head and you turn on the taps. She says _Britt_ like a whine, but you just twirl your finger in the air, motioning for her to turn around and let you work. You tell her to lean her head back, and she does, and you tell her to close her eyes, yet already they are closed.

You use one hand to shield her face, and you pour with the other, letting the water trickle back from her hairline until it cascades down the length of her hair. And sure, you've washed your sister's hair before, you've tried at one time or another - best not mentioned - to wash Lord Tubbington's, but you haven't ever, like this, done it as an act of devotion. Because that's what it feels like as you dedicate your fingers to following the trail of the water down and easing the tangles from the hair beneath your touch. And it's exactly what it feels like when you work the shampoo into a lather within your palms and you soap her hair and you massage her scalp, and you feel her sigh surround you.

"Is this okay?" you ask.

"The _best_," she says, and again you seek something better.

To show her. Kind of without thinking.

You drop your hands to her shoulders and you lean forward, and you do kiss her, in that place where her neck meets her shoulder and you feel her pulse beneath your lips. She tastes of soap, and it tingles your tongue, yet you press your kiss there. You open your mouth and taste her skin beneath the soap, and when you pull away she moans, or groans, or sighs a sound that asks you to return.

You tell her to lean her head back though. You wash the soap from her hair with the same devotion that placed it there, and when you slide the strands through your fingers coated in conditioner, it's like a repeat of the ritual. You pause to place another kiss; the other side of her neck touched and tickled by your love, and then you rinse her clean. And then…

Because you know you have to move. You seriously can't stay within the security of the bath forever, but… You don't really want to move. You don't want to disturb this ease of feeling; this closeness you've uncovered with the uncovering of her skin. You don't want to not feel her warmth against you, and the way it staves off the shivers.

You think perhaps you sigh this time.

When she turns her face to look at you though, with her hair slicked back and her eyes wet from the water, you only find another smile. "All done," you say, and her gaze flits upward towards your piled up dry hair, before she speaks.

"Do you want me to…"

"No," you rush to tell her, before she can even make the suggestion. You arch your eyebrows up and down and you tell her that she can do you next time; "Besides," you say, holding your hands up in front of her face, "I'm all prune-y. My skin's growing wrinkles on its wrinkles."

You don't tell her that this time was all about her; you don't tell her how much you just wanted to wash her stresses away, or how inside you were symbolising washing away all of her bad feeling. You just smile as you wiggle your fingers and you wait for her to smile back at you.

She holds up her own hands. She shows you how you match.

"We're like two prunes in a pod," she says, laughing lightly, and your hand finds hers and you mesh your wrinkled skin together. And you think you won't lose this closeness even when you do emerge from beneath the water to meet the chill in the air.

You still emerge slowly though, because you're still kind of naked.

A lot.

You wait for her head to turn back towards the front, and you edge yourself up behind her and you step from the tub. You don't let your eyes fall to where the bubbles have dissipated, you just concentrate on taking your towel and wrapping it around you, and… She's hunched herself forward, and wrapped herself up again, and you can see that she's found a shiver now, sat in the cooling water without your body to lean back against.

You say _Santana_ and she looks across at you; at your towel, and then her eyes flick to the towel rack. And you figure this is different. It's one thing to sit naked together inside of a bathtub and accept that it's natural - it'd be unnatural if you hadn't been naked - but.

To step outside of the tub. To just brazenly stand and show herself, bared and beautiful.

When you see her bite her lip, you know that she's thinking it through.

You tuck your own towel tight so as it doesn't slip down, and you turn to reach for hers. Because you could step away here; you could smile and stand outside of the bathroom and you could let her find her own way out, but…

You don't want to lose this closeness.

You hold the towel up and open instead, you show her your intention, and you smile when she rises. You keep your eyes trained up; locked on hers. Locked in hers. And when she stands close enough to touch, you wrap the towel around her and…

She kisses you.

Your hands are still on her towel, holding it closed, and your eyes are still on her eyes, and she just tiptoes up the inches between you, and she lands her lips upon your lips. Closed mouthed and innocent, and when she pulls away, she says _thank you. _

She says _Brittany_.

And it's more than a bath.

You smile and you lean forward to return her kiss, yet she pulls away again. She shakes her head, and you see the awed look settle in her eyes, and she says it;

"I really don't deserve you, Britt."

Like a throwaway comment, like a _c'est la vie _situation where things just are as they are, like…

Like, sound-bites that never should've been seeded in her ears.

"You really think that?" you ask her, your voice low and solemn.

It stops her eyes, it drops her eyes, and she's no longer looking at you. Her arms come up to hold her own towel tight, and she tells you; "I _know _that, Britt". And you wonder who gets to decide. You wonder at the location of a scale so large that it can measure and mark everyone's deserved outcomes.

You reject the notion. You don't care what's deserved. You only know what you want.

And you want to love Santana; you _do_ love Santana, and it still curls your lip.

"There's a flaw in your logic," you answer her somewhere around your smile, and she looks at you, and her head tilts, and you tell her more; "You can't know what you don't know, and I don't think you know what you deserve, or, I don't think we get to judge what we deserve, I just…" she's hanging onto each of your words and you're sure you can't make them say what you want them to say, so you stop, and you smile, and you shrug your bare shoulders; "…Maybe we just deserve each other?"

You watch her brow dip and you know that she's considering your logic compared to hers. You know also that it's probably going to take whole lot more than pretty proclamations to sway the way she's trained herself to see it, and so… You turn the words around.

Because she looks at you in awe. And she's never denied you anything.

"I know I deserve another kiss," you say.

"I think you definitely do," she affirms, and you watch her lips pucker up, pillow soft and waiting.

When you kiss her, it's soft and quick, and she looks at you as if she was waiting for more. She says as much; "You deserve a lot more than that, Britt," and she tips up on to her toes again and seeks your mouth with hers. And it's soft and it's slow, and it reminds you of all that you want. It reminds you to break away and hold your hands steady by your sides. Yet…

Her hands go to yours. She steps forward until her towel and your towel are almost the same towel, and she pulls your hands behind her body until she's fashioned you into a hug around her. When she leans up and kisses you this time, there's no space to break away, and you just relax and you let her kiss you; exactly how she wants to, exactly how she feels you deserve.

And it's soft and it's slow and it doesn't ever stop.

Like…

Like, she believes you deserve every single thing that she has to give.

…

You follow the thought on her lips all the way to the bedroom. Her arms stay holding your hands behind her back, and her mouth continues to make your mouth hers, and she steps you from the en suite into the open space of your room, and.

She breaks for air and you bite your lip.

You have a thousand thoughts and zero thoughts running through your mind and you have _no _and _yes_ and… She lets go of your hands.

You don't move them from around her.

You don't move at all.

You can feel your heart hammering in your chest, and you don't dare to examine your mind or,

"Britt," she whispers, and her breath warms the air next to your ear; and you shiver, or you quake, and her lips touch you there. Or her tongue, or her teeth; like a graze of a promise you didn't know she was making.

Like her own study notes.

When she measured your reactions to her touch and,

She says your name again, her lips pressed against your neck, and when you offer no answer she says _BrittBritt_ like a tease and you wonder when you fell inside of this daze. Because you don't know if you're meant to be fighting this feeling or _feeling_ this feeling, you just…

You open your eyes when the air cools on your neck, and she's looking at you. Her eyebrows are arching down in contemplation and you wonder at what she's wondering; why her lips made for kissing are now making sad shapes instead. It makes you dip your own eyebrow, it makes you say _San_ in a tone seeking concerned.

Her mouth opens and shuts. Her hands come together in front of her towel and you watch as she watches her fingers twisting tight together. And maybe you get it.

Almost.

Because you told her you deserve each other, that she deserves you, and yet…

It's not her fear holding you back here. She's not the one holding herself tight.

She's not the one who's stepped out from the bath and away from the closeness you found when you were pressed tight together. And you want to kick yourself. Because you're worrying so much about what's meant, and when and how and in which order you do it so you don't do it wrong, that, you think maybe, you weren't seeing what's _right_ in front of you.

And you look at her until she looks back up at you, and you see.

Her dejection; as if your non-response was fashioned from rejection, and again you want to kick yourself. Yet you don't. You tighten the hold she placed herself inside, and you bring her closer to you. You say _hi_ this time, and it's not all wrapped up in concern.

Her return _hi _is still timid, though, and you squeeze harder.

Your hands slide down from her back to nestle against the towel enclosed curve of her ass, and you smile your half smile - your almost shy-before-her smile - and you say;

"I want you, Santana."

Sure and certain and the opposite of rejection.

You angle your head down and you kiss her lips, and you say it again in the breaks between breaths -_ I want you_ - because you need her to hear you, to really _hear_ you, and not question it, even if everything else in her world brings her questions you don't want her to question that. Yet she asks;

"Yeah?" like maybe there's still a doubt, and, you just…

You want to give her every single thing that she deserves. You really do want to show her and know her and love every inch of the hurt right out of her forever. She closes her eyes when you confirm your _yes,_ and you lean forward a little to nudge her nose with yours. You say; "Kiss me, San," and when her eyes open, you say, "Kiss me like you were kissing me before."

And she bites her lip, and you raise your eyebrow.

"Please?" you ask, because you know she won't deny you.

Her hands push you back a bit as they unclench in the space between you, and she lifts them up and slides them around your neck, and then her towel touches your towel and she tiptoes herself up again; and she kisses you. Her lips lock onto your bottom one and she sucks it slightly between her own, and you feel her tongue as it traces along the length.

You open your mouth and her tongue touches you there again.

One of her hands slides higher against the back of your head and she holds you to her, she pushes the force of the feeling unnamed against you, and…

Your towel moves.

Or, her towel moves.

Or, she doesn't stop and the thought is fleeting, because your hands are gripping her just as hard as she's gripping you, and loosening towels are so far away from the tightening in your tummy that you don't flesh the thought out; you don't pause for decency, you just kiss her deeper. You steal the breaths from her breaks and you kiss her more.

Because if you never stop for air then the distance between you will never allow the towels to fall and…

She pulls her head back. She glances down between you and your eyes follow hers, and you know she's going to do it, you just _know._ Maybe from the look that flits across her face as her teeth rake over her bottom lip; maybe from the way one of her hands drop to tickle a touch down your neck and across your shoulder until she reaches the top of the towel. And she pauses. And she smiles. And her voice sounds _so_ husky, that you strain to hear her;

"Reading backwards," she whispers.

Your eyebrow dips down; "Reading backwards?" you echo inside of a question.

She smiles again, more, and she says _sure, Britt, _

"…because we already saw each other naked for assignment number ten, so,"

So she's speaking your language and you smile at her words. "Reading backwards," you repeat once again, savouring the sound, and you lift your hands from her ass and up to the top of her towel. You think of all her slow reveals, you think of all the times you've paused before you've reached this threshold to someplace else, and,

"Also," she says, stepping away from you enough to let everything fall, "naked kissing."

And your eyes go to her lips, to her neck, to…

Heaven?

Because you're not sure on her lesson plan, but you are sure that there's something sacred about the way she's standing before you; just… "Britt," she says, barely a whisper, and her hand tugs at your towel, and you let it fall the same way she did, and…

Away from the bathroom the naked is so much more enticing.

Maybe it's the proximity to the bed.

Maybe it's the way her skin doesn't slide along yours as she presses herself back against you.

Her lips touch your neck and you shiver and you quake. And you break.

Like a dam.

And you don't want to hold back anymore.

Your one hand finds purchase in her hair, still wet from the bath, and the other reclaims the curve of her ass, and you pull her into you, against you, just as hard and as fervent as you desperately want her, and when she moans into your mouth, your hands hold tighter. Your feet move. Like you're dancing, like you're leading her across the floor and dipping her down to touch the bed. And when she falls, you follow, and you're hyper aware of everywhere that your body lands against hers; from the way your feet entangle to the way your leg lies between her own to the way you're holding your hips tense not to crush her to your breasts pressed against her to,

_Brittany_ she says, and you look to her lips.

And you feel every inch of your smile as you move closer to kiss her. Because she said _naked kissing_ and you're both extremely naked and you want so much to be kissing. And so,

You kiss her. Like a luxury you want to share; you massage her tongue with your own and you fill her mouth entirely. You swallow her sounds and you take her breaths, and when the feeling makes you heady, you travel to her neck. You suck at her skin, and then you nip at her skin, and when she hisses at the pressure your teeth tickle against her, you bite her, gently, or almost gently, or enough to buck her hips and have her slamming up against you.

Into you.

It raises you, even though you're finding a rhythm.

Your arms are resting either side of her head, and you put the pressure there, just for a moment, yet when you pull your chests apart and your breasts graze against hers and your nipples fight erect to strain for her touch, your hips buck back and you grind down against her; and _Britt _she breathes and you remember that sound. Before, on your hotel bed, and it's the same, but it's different, because…

…The heat you feel where your hips are touching isn't a heat restrained. And when her fingers drag the length of your back until she finds a hold against the curve of your own ass, she touches your skin instead of cloth, and you kiss her again. And she kisses back just as hard now, her tongue fights to fill your mouth with the same urgency with which you filled her, and she _grinds_… up, her hands down, and you throw your head back on that feeling.

Her lips attach to your neck.

One hand traces the skin on your back upwards and she's pulling your head down again. You hear _Britt, _you say _San_… You breathe, you think, your hand…

Touches her skin.

And you don't think. You're not thinking. You're finding her hip and you're pulling her closer, and you're rolling, or you're sliding; onto your side, or her side. Until you're face to face, yet she hasn't let go of you, and she doesn't let go of you. She chases your lips until she can kiss you again, and you open your mouth to meet her, and your hand still touches her skin; her hip, your thumb; tracing a graze…

Downwards. You slide your fingers along the outside of her thigh and when you apply the slightest pressure, she moves with you and she hooks her leg across you and you move with her.

Your own thigh lifts, and your eyes shoot open, and,

Because,

She takes a deep breath in and you feel her against you. And she moves. And you move. And your skin slides together again in that place where she's wet. Slowly, yet with purpose; your fingertips tripping light across her curves as you arch yourself up into her heat.

And,

_Brittany_

Again.

Like a wish. Like a want. Like a plea for all of her wishes and all of her wants and,

You name them.

Inside of yourself, you lay them out. Because she wants to be yours and she wishes for you to exist inside of her and she wants you to feel how she feels and,

When you kiss her this time you push her back until she's beneath you and her moan of movement, or displeasure, touches your ears, and you smile against her lips and you lift yourself again; more than before, so your thigh still presses up against her, but you're not touching everywhere… You make enough space to break the kiss. To take the kiss to her neck and down to her chest, to hear another hiss of breath leave her lips when your tongue traces the space between her breasts; when it drags along her skin to lick slow across the raised point of a nipple… She gasps a breath… and you wrap your lips around her and you suck her into your mouth, and you harden the soft with the tips of your teeth, and again you hear _Brittany_ and again you remember, and again, your hand.

Travelling the distance between your lips and your thigh.

Her fingers tighten against your skin as your fingers lighten against hers, and now you do think, because you _know_, and you need to know that she knows… You need,

"Santana," you say, pulling your mouth from her skin, and seeking her eyes.

Yet she turns her head and she pulls your body to her tighter and she still marks out her grind against you, as if she thinks you're pausing to stop, or pausing to…

You don't even know. You just kiss her, slowly. Your lips pressing to her face until she turns her own lips to greet you. Her kiss is so deep and insistent and it feels almost terrified to stop and draw breath, and she doesn't know… So you show her.

You pull away enough to see, and you wait for her to look.

And when your hand moves, when your fingers slide past her hip, you watch her bite her lip. You think you bite your own as you pull your thigh back and slide your fingers further.

You're looking into her eyes, she's looking into yours, and;

She _knows_, and she smiles, and her hips rise to meet you.

And you touch her.

_There_.

Your hand moves down and your fingers part her lips and you feel her warmth and her wetness and; _Brittany_, she says on a breath, and her eyes have slid wide, and you smile. You slide your fingers slowly down until you can circle the source of her heat, and you slide them slowly up again… You guide her through the slightest of rhythms, down and up and up and down, and you don't once break the stare that your feelings have surrounded her in. And she looks and you look, and when her hips move harder against you and her breaths become sighs, and her eyes close tight on each of your down strokes…

"_Santana_."

You say, and you want to exist inside her.

And you lean forward with your lips and you kiss her. Your breaths are shaky, and her heart hammers against your chest and your heart hammers against hers, and you pause,

On the down-stroke. Her mouth opens and you slide your tongue inside her and her legs slide and you slide, and you pause, and you push, and your finger slips soft.

_Inside_ her.

And you feel her muscles clench, tight and then tighter, and you kiss her.

You don't know who sets the spark of the rhythm you find or when her legs push apart and you add a second finger to travel tight against the first, or when her own fingers dig in hard enough against your skin to make you moan, you just know,

Your own name. Because she's saying it over and over and over; on her breaths out and on your pushes in, and each time when you pull out and you circle upwards before sliding back inside and twisting your fingers - _Brittany - _she pants,her voice higher and her tone desperate.

You touch her deeper. You push harder.

And she pulls harder, and you hear _fuck_ and you hear _yes _and you hear _God _and;

_Brittany._

You bring your thigh up behind your hand and when you push against her with your weight behind you, she arches tight up into you, and her lips go to your neck, and you can feel her teeth, and you can feel her tensing, outside and in, and,

_Britt_, and _Britt,_ and _Brittany… _Her breathing ragged, her tone taut enough to break…

…And when she comes apart you catch her.

She's gripping you so tight, all over, and you don't pull away; you stay with her, across the threshold, your body still moving with hers as she shakes beneath you, and you kiss her. You kiss her mouth, you kiss her eyes, you kiss her cheeks… And she sighs sounds. Like, different sounds; not frantic sounds, and her hips move slow and she presses into you again, and you barely move, your fingers stay almost straight inside her, yet… again, she says _Britt_, and again you touch her tense, and again…

You kiss her.

You slide your fingers from inside to outside and you kiss her. Just on her mouth, just until she takes her breath and her tongue touches yours and,

You smile. And you feel her smile against you.

…

It doesn't take long for the air to cool; even though you still lay on top of her and your skin feels the heat from your every caress, you can't stop the shiver. It makes her arms slide tighter around you, yet still; you shiver again. You smile into that place by the side of her neck, next to that place on your shoulder where her fingers are lightly tracing you.

You haven't spoken yet.

No words have been said since she last said _Britt_ and you followed her with _San_ and with kisses and with quiet breaths that leave you both silent. You think if you say anything right now it'll be something too effusive or too excited or, _honestly_? You want to dance about the room.

You can feel the pirouette inside wanting to break free. You could find a thousand moves which you want to express to release this feeling inside you. Because…

_Santana._

And you smile again.

Really high; kind of how you feel.

At first, when you hear her voice say _Brittany_ you think you're still reliving the moments, yet her fingers pause on stroking your skin, and you feel her body shift beneath you. You feel it everywhere, like a livewire without the water, yet still just as charged. You lift yourself up on your arm again, and when you look at her, when your eyes meet hers and you see her smile and you see…

You see how she _feels_. And your eyes drop shy, and your smile dips shyer, and when you look up again her brow is arched and; "Hey," she says, and you feel your cheeks pink.

You whisper _hi_, and she looks delighted.

She looks really delighted. The most delighted she's ever looked at you.

Her eyebrows lift, up and down, and you can guess in that way that you're beginning to guess her, the direction that her mind is travelling. You see the smug, you know the way she'll find her words, and you approve. You delight in them as much as she does.

"Nine _and_ ten… that's two assignments in one day," she says, and you dip down a frown at her.

"Two?" you ask, as if you're bemused.

Like a tease. Like a way to challenge the cocky grin she's currently flashing up at you; and she pauses… And you see her thoughts. Because this was assignment nine; hot damn was it assignment nine… yet,

Her frown pinches her forehead, and you can't tease the happy feeling away from her. Not when you're still smiling so high. You lean forward and kiss your lips to your nose and you tell her; "You're silly," and she looks at you even more bemused. You roll your eyes, you cock your own grin, "Eight and a half," you say, "and ten," you tell her, and then you pause, and then you press your lips against hers, and, "_and_ nine," you continue when you pull away, because whether or not her hands touched you as intimately as yours touched her, you're giving her all of the pass marks and moving onto eleven. "That's three in one day, Santana; at least try and keep count, yeah?"

She smiles up at you, still cocky; "I definitely only counted twice, Britt…"

And your eyes go wide at the implication, and she sasses you a look, and, "…I'm ready for three though, if you want to go again? I'm kind of tired, it's been a bitch of a weekend, but if you counted three, I don't know, maybe we should…"

Your stop her words with your lips and you kiss her into silence. You kiss her when you break to find a place beneath the sheets and you kiss her even more when you've cocooned yourself inside them. You don't remember when you stop kissing her, or if you whisper words between each kiss, or if you stare through the minutes making sounds inside of your silence, because this feels like a dream - like the best kind of dream.

And even when you fall asleep, the dream doesn't change and you know that you're still touching her.

….


	16. What Santana Wants

...

You wake slowly and serenely the morning after the night before, and each breath you become aware of is a different kind of breath, because behind each lazy lungful of air there's the silent knowledge creeping across your senses of just how sincerely your scenery has shifted. It's like a smile somewhere at the back of your brain that slowly eases itself forwards until it lands upon your lips. Like kisses.

Like…

_Santana._

And it's the biggest smile, and it's the brightest smile, and even when you reach out, even when your eyes open, and you see she's not right there by your side, your smile doesn't shift. There's no darkness to dim it, nor any shadow strong enough to cast aspersions across it, because… Just because. You existed for a moment inside her, and it's the most meaningful moment of your life. You've never before felt like - like _that_ - like you felt when you held her world in the palm of your hand and fashioned it into ecstasy.

You've never felt closer to anyone, and the distance between you now doesn't daunt you. It disappoints you slightly; you could think of nothing more delightful than to wake her with the kisses your lips still tingle from the taste of, yet…

It's different for her. And you get that.

For you, realising everything you want has been a continued excursion since the moment you were born. You've never had to bury your dreams in the ground, you've never had to lay yourself to waste and say silent goodbyes to the strength of your spirit. You share with Santana the loss of a parent, but you don't share the sadness of losing yourself too. And, you think probably, that finding yourself so far away from who you really are, is quite…

Distant?

You don't know the words to make it into a thought, but you know that you feel it. You know that you understand why you haven't woken to find Santana in your bed, and you know it's okay with you. You suspect she hasn't gone far; your apartment doesn't feel empty, and this moment alone to savour sensations, isn't a bad moment.

It's a lip biting moment.

Because beyond the sense of wonderment, there's the sense of… _skin._

Hers, against yours. And yours, against hers.

Like a slow saturation of the senses that reminds you of all the ways you touched her. It makes you slow to rise; it makes you curl yourself inside your sheets and then it makes you stretch yourself out with a sigh of satisfaction, and then.

You want to close her distances; you really want to find her.

And you do.

You pause to pull a t-shirt over your head, to pull a pair of socks on your feet to stop the chill of the cold kitchen floor, and then you follow your thoughts until your eyes rest upon her. She's sat at the breakfast bar holding a coffee cup, she's even opened her suitcase and pulled on a t-shirt of her own, yet all you really notice her wearing is the frown that creases her features. You see the shadows that haunt her gaze.

It's another thing that doesn't daunt you.

You rest against the doorframe and you let your eyes linger on her for as long as they want to. You don't say anything, you don't need to; her eyes find their way to yours anyway, she rests the cup down in front of her and she looks back at you with the same lingering intensity you're looking at her.

"Hi" she finally says, and you smile, and her eyes drop down, and her eyes lift up, and you have to fight really hard to keep the pink from colouring your cheeks. You clear your throat, and you ask;

"How come you're so far away?"

"I didn't want to wake you," she says.

Her voice is quiet and you step from the doorframe to walk the straight line towards her. "What woke _you_?" you ask, and her voice drops quieter.

"I was thinking."

And you can see close up how her frown still taints her brow with thoughts. You place one of your hands on the skin of her knee, and the other you rest on top of the breakfast bar; just enough to give you traction to spin the stool that she's sitting upon to turn her around. When she's facing you fully you take a hold of her other knee, you separate her legs, and you stand between them.

"Good thoughts or bad thoughts?" you ask her seriously.

She lifts her hands up and slides them around the back of your neck, she pulls you forward the few inches needed to kiss your lips good morning, and you feel as she smiles against you.

"Getting better thoughts," she says when you pull away, and you catch a bite of your lip and you stare a look into her.

Or she stares a look into you.

And, "Britt…" she says, seriously intoned, and again you spy sight of her shadows. They push you to step closer against her, to lift your hands from her skin and find them a place up on the breakfast bar, either side of her body.

"Uh-huh?" you ask.

"I think we should…" she starts again, yet her eyes drift down to look at your lips, and now you kiss her. Neither closed mouthed nor candid, you kiss every inch of feeling right into her. You find the spaces you filled last night, and you trace them again with your tongue. You offer her all of your better thoughts. You give her the one which says _I've got you,_ and you remind her of wishes come true.

You also steal her breath.

Maybe her words. Because when you pull away again and step out of her reach, she doesn't comment. Her eyes just follow you across the room, they rest on you when you reach up to the cupboard to pull down your own cup for coffee, and when you sit across from her on an opposite stool, they settle on you and they stay.

You say _hey._

She says _hi_ again.

When her hand travels across the top of the counter you take it. Your thumb rubs across her skin and you feel it flutter in your stomach. "We should probably talk…" she says, her eyes not dropping from yours, and,

"Talk?" you ask her. You lift your other hand, you lean a little forward in your seat, and you join it to the hand you're already holding. "Is _that_ what you woke up to think about?"

"Something like that," she answers, and she joins all of your hands together. Her eyes drop to your fingers entwined and you follow her gaze; you wait for her speak again. "You just…" she says. And she stops, so you ask;

"I just..?"

"_Everything_ Britt. I feel like you're giving me everything here and I'm…"

"You're..?"

Her eyes meet yours again, and you wish that you could tell her about how you didn't even know how much every thing there was until you met her.

You bite your lip though; you wait on her words.

"I don't have anything to give you." Her shoulders shrug and you go to refute the ridiculous, yet she speaks before you do; "I mean it Britt, just think about it; even if I _can_ get myself out of this mess, even if…" She pauses and she pulls one of her hands away to run it through her hair, "…What do I have to offer, huh? You're this hotshot TV star and I've never even worked a day in my life; I haven't been to college, I haven't-"

"Santana," you say, you interrupt, and you squeeze the hand you're still holding, "I haven't been to college either."

You watch your words pinch her brow, you watch them stutter her thoughts.

"I know," she says, "but that's totally different; you have a life, you have… _stuff, _I don't have…"

You can't help but smile. You can't help but love her crazy.

"_Stuff,_" you repeat, your lips curving higher around the sound, "are you worried you won't be able to…" And you want to say _keep me,_ or _provide for me,_ but beneath her fears her thoughts are so sweet, that your words trail off, and your eyes burn bright, and,

Her eyes drop down.

"You're so awesome," you tell her, smiling at thoughts of a future where she'd think of a way to provide for you. You don't stop there; you wait until her eyes come back to yours again and then you continue. "Like, I know stuff's important, and I get why you're sad about not having stuff, but, you're _awesome_, San, and all of the stuff in the world doesn't mean anything next to awesome. I don't want stuff…" you say, because you don't. You want the wish and you want the dream and, "…I just want _you_."

So much.

And she stares. And you see it, as her shadows start to drift away.

"I think you're the awesome one," she tells you, and it makes her smile.

"I am also awesome," you accept, nodding sagely, "which probably explains why we're such an incredibly awesome double-act."

She nods the same as you, and it makes you smile. "We also have the whole _fine_ thing working in our favour."

"Nu-uh," you say, shaking your head this time, "I think we agreed that you're the fine one; I'm just the collector of the fine."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She bites her lip and you want to collect all of her fine. You want to hold it in the palm of your hand again. You want…

Her.

And again you smile. You feel the flush of your blush as she stares at you.

When she says _breakfast_ you admire the direction of her thoughts; you cock your brow.

She rolls her eyes, "Seriously, Britt," she says, and she laughs, and you smile larger. "Whatever fine you hit me with last night, already has me famished; I need something more than coffee."

You think only of the fine you hit her with.

And "_Britt_," she whines, and her eyes shine happy.

You say _breakfast_. You aim to make her the happiest.

…

You actually make her eggs over easy because she remembered that they were your favourite and she asked to taste your favourite. She said it slowly, with feeling;

"I want to taste your favourite, Britt… _Eggs over easy_, right?"

You think your legs buckled a bit. You remember the way you said the same words to her, weeks ago, up on top of that hill when you were first trading favourites. You remember the first time her lips touched yours and how tentative the touch was. You don't need to remember how much you wanted her then, because it's nothing compared to the want you have for her now.

She's finished her eggs, her toast and her coffee, and she's looking at you again.

It's like her eyes are taking a leisurely stroll around your face, and every time her gaze locks back into yours, she smiles. You feel your ears burn; you feel the blood race hot as it chases through your veins, and you know that the blush has made it to your cheeks. It's that sensation again, that one where you feel like a teenager in love and your stomach flutters butterflies and your thoughts all stutter in your mind, and;

She bites her lip.

Or she drags her teeth slowly across her lip.

And you think perhaps you're mesmerised.

You lean forward in your chair and you drop the half-eaten slice of toast you've been clinging to back to the plate, you shuffle in your seat, you inch even further forward when her mouth opens and _Britt_ falls out, all deep voiced and seductive, and,

"…It's not just the eggs that are easy in the morning," she says, and her shoulders shake and her nose scrunches up happy, and, you just…

"That was mean, San," you say, only you don't mean it at all. You just _can't_ with her right now, because you're torn between wanting to kiss her silly and kiss her _everywhere, _and your fingers still feel the touch of her skin, and they still feel how they filled her and then stilled her and then made her shake, and your ears still remember the sound of your name as it fell from her lips. And your face isn't chastising her, you simply smile around your words and then you add to them; "How would you like it if I teased you, huh?"

"I don't know, Britt," she offers, leaning as far forward on her stool as you are, "How would I like it?"

You tilt your head. You contemplate what it might be like to tease her, you consider how many ways you could find to drag your name out different from her lips, with pleas and _please _and; "_I'd_ like it," you say, lifting your eyebrows.

"And me?"

"Hmm." You pause for more contemplation. You look past her shoulder and you lick slow at your lips… You bring your gaze back to her eyes and then to her mouth, you take a deep breath in.

And, "_Britt…_"

"I think you'd like it," you laugh, and she rolls her eyes and you shoot her a wink, and you're sure you'd like it too. You think you'd really like it a lot.

It turns your head in the direction of the clock on the cooker. It makes you roll your eyes for reasons different to hers as you notice that time has already stolen your minutes and made its way past ten; it makes her follow your gaze and dip her brow. Like a question.

Like a sigh.

And you hear her changing tone when she talks your thoughts, when she sounds out the time and asks what your plans are for the day. Because. You don't want plans; you want this, right here, and her, again…

You don't want to have to face the reality that you tried so hard to wash away last night.

Her smiles drops down some as she waits on your words, and you force the lift to your lips again as you tell her your day's plans;

"I have that lunchtime meet with Sam and Holly, but it's in a restaurant with a bar, so…"

"Holly?" she asks.

"My boss; we've got to go over some stuff from Friday's show and talk through this week's schedule. It's nothing major," you tell her shrugging your shoulders, "everything's already in place, she just wants to check that we're doing okay."

She nods her head and her eyes drop to the countertop.

And you ask; "What about you, San? What's your plans?" And her eyes lift up.

Her brow dips down. "I don't…" she says, and then she stops. She sighs. "I don't actually know. I should probably…"

When she trails off again, you tell her you can take her wherever she needs to go. You have the van and you have _some_ time before your meeting, so,

"I still don't want to go."

Her words stop your words. They sound solemn, yet they also sound strong, and you raise your eyebrow in her direction. "Can you stay?" you ask her, and you want to add _please_, you really do, yet you're asking if it's actually possible, not telling her how much you want her to.

She looks to the countertop again. Her shoulders shrug and she says _I want to._

"Okay," you say, "so…"

"I don't know, Britt."

"Okay," you say again, but now you're thinking. Really thinking, because; because you want her to stay too, so, so bad. And you look to the clock again and you think of your meeting. You bend your mind around time and you measure out your minutes. And you stand.

When you reach her side of the breakfast bar, she's already pushed her stool around so that she faces you, and when she opens her legs, you fill the space between them. Your hands drop and your fingers slide wide across the bareness of her thighs, and you smile. You say _okay_ once more and her eyes follow the sounds as they fall from your lips.

"Okay?" she asks.

"I think, maybe…" You say, and you squeeze her a little beneath your grip. "…It's too late now to make big decisions; I need to get ready and go pick up Sam, but… You can stay for now, right? And then later, when I get back, we can talk and we can make a plan, and if it's a good plan…"

Your words trail off, because,

Her smile. It's tickling her lips and they lift just a little, and, "I'm good at making plans," she assures you, and her hands drop down and fall onto yours. And you don't know, you're not sure if she's pulling them up or if you're sliding them up, but you feel the edges of her t-shirt brush against your fingertips and you breathe in _really _deep. And you squeeze your grip.

And she edges forward in her seat.

And her thighs wrap tight around your hips.

Her legs lock behind you.

And, "Brittany," and…

"Santana," you say serious, because time is ticking and you're not ready yet to be fast with her. You don't pull away from her though; you lift your hands from her thighs and slide them around her sides, you trace your place upwards until your fingers feel the soft hairs at the back of her neck, and you kiss her;

Slow, yet chaste.

You just taste her.

Just a small dip to her lips to savour her sweetness.

When you feel the tight grip of her thighs relax, you pull back softly, and she smiles up at you. "I love the way you kiss me, Britt," she tells you.

And _yeah_ you ask, and _yes_ she says, and… _Love._

She said it.

And you kiss her again, just to make sure.

…

You've never realised before how hard it is to get ready to go out when there's someone watching your every more. You've never _had_ to realise before, yet, now…

Your fingers fumble on every shirt button and your hair looks lost; like you forgot halfway what you were meant to be doing with it, and now it just sits atop your head and looks something like a bird's nest. With less structure. With a somewhat looser flair for design.

You don't care, you think, because anytime you glance up to your mirror, her eyes are behind you and they're watching you closely. She's sat on the edge of your bed, her legs are bare and crossed before her, and you.

You actually, obviously, _are_ close to being a Buddha, because the restraint you're showing in not turning and taking her in that place where she sits, is proof positive, you're sure, that you're destined for enlightenment. Because that bed that she sits on is your bed, and your bed is the place where you lay naked last night and you pressed tight inside her…

And you channel the Buddha.

You think about Sam and you think about Holly, and you try again with your hair.

"I could help you," she says, from her place on your bed, and you grimace a grin to the mirror.

"I've got it, thanks."

Because really, she's not helped so far, and you don't see how having her any closer to your side would be any kind of help at all. She lifts herself up from the bed though.

You watch her reflection as she walks her way towards you, and you don't stop her when her fingers find your hair and loosen it from the tie you've imprisoned it within. She reaches across your left shoulder to pick up your brush, while her right hand teases down the tangles you've worked into your hair, and _pretty_ she says, and, "I really like when you wear it down."

Yet you haven't showered, and it has all kinds of kinks in it, and you're not sure that down is the best look for the day. You tilt your head as you consider, and she leans herself down to look over your shoulder; "We could straighten it out," she says, "and if you're not happy with it, you can just wear a hat."

She likes your hats. You remember. And you smile and you nod and you sit still while she fusses about you with as much care as you can remember anyone ever fixing your hair with. You grab a hat when she's finished, and when you sit it on top of your head at your favoured angle, you both smile at the end result.

She says _perfect_.

You say _thank you_.

And you hate the fact that you have to leave her.

It's like the shoe is forcing itself onto the other foot, and you see for a moment how much it must take for her to pull herself away from you whenever she needs to leave. It makes you take out a stake in silence as you work your way about your room and collect your things together. It has you thinking through a different kind of plan as you trail from your room to the kitchen and she follows behind you. Because it's not just leaving her, it's leaving her here alone, and you _really_ don't want to do that. You've seen the shadows that wait like clouds to cover her sunshine, and you can't bear to leave her sad; you…

Smile.

Because you're Brittany S Pierce and you have a partner in crime. Someone to split the dime. A pair of shoulders just as sturdy as yours when it comes to bearing the weights of the world. And sure, you arranged with your neighbour that you'd pick him up later, but it's only a few hours earlier, really, and you need him now. Or you think maybe Santana does, and that's enough to firm the thought into a solid plan of action.

…

It turns out Lord Tubbington wasn't best pleased when you wrestled him away early from the loving arms of your doting neighbour, and when you carried him across the hall and dumped him down onto Santana's vacant lap, they both looked up at you in complete consternation.

"Remember he likes to be stroked under his chin," you told her, and you leaned down and kissed her cheek and you petted Lord Tubbington's head, and you left with a smile of satisfaction plastered across your face. When you first informed her you'd be collecting him to keep her company for the afternoon, she looked ridiculously insulted and insisted she didn't need a babysitter, especially not a cat, and most especially not a fat cat. "What if he sits on me and I can't get up? What then, Britts, huh? How you gonna feel when your pussy's crushed my-"

And you kissed away her words until she silenced up her silly.

You've seen them both together; you know she likes him really. You know she likes him a lot.

It's a thought that carries your smile all the way to Sam's place, and it's a smile that he comments upon as soon as he opens the door of the van and settles in beside you. He flicks the volume of the radio lower, he rests his feet up on the dash, and he turns to you with a giant grin of greeting stretching out his face; "So," he says, offering you his most knowing of looks, "I'm guessing from your smile that things went okay last night?"

"You're always trying to guess from my smile, Sam; you'd think by now you'd know that I always smile. I'm a smiler. I like smiling."

"You do," he agrees, "but lately you've been smiling so much more, and this is the biggest one yet. What gives?" he asks you, pulling his seatbelt tight across his body and clicking it into place. And you're not about to jump from the van and dance a jig of joy, you're certainly not about to share with Sam what your mind is still taking its time sharing with yourself, but, he is your _best_ friend, and he does care, and,

"Santana stayed over," you say, dipping your eyes and finding your blush.

He doesn't fist bump your shoulder. He doesn't holler out a victory call. He lessens his smile until it's nothing but genuine, and he just looks at you, knowing.

"That's great, Britt," he tells you, and you glance up and you nod.

"I really like her, Sam," you say, "like, I'm kind of crazy about her."

And he still looks knowing.

He doesn't pester you with questions on your drive to the restaurant, he simply settles at your side and increases the volume of the radio again, and he harmonises along as all of your happy comes out inside songs. You even sing along with the tunes you don't know, and you're still humming around your smile when you're shown to your booth and you drop yourself down in the seat opposite Holly. Sam takes the place at your side, and both of you wait in silence while she finishes up with a call on her phone.

It makes you check your own phone. Santana had dug hers out of her suitcase and put it on to charge before you left yours, yet you don't have any new messages in your inbox, and you focus all of your attention back on Holly as she offers you both an enthused greeting and waves her hand in the air to call for the waiter. When he comes over you order only a salad, and when Holly insists on a round of _celebratory_ drinks, you tell her that you're driving and you stick to iced water. Then you ask her why you're celebrating;

"You're kidding, right, Britt?" she asks, and you offer her a blank look. "You have seen the figures for Friday's show? You've heard all the hype from last night's episode of FashionistarZ?"

You turn your head to look at Sam, and he shrugs his shoulder, and then you shrug your shoulder and shake your head in the negative. "I've been kind of busy all weekend, so."

"I know you've been busy," she replies, "but this is some serious stuff here, Hotshot! Everywhere I go I'm hearing the name _Brittany S Pierce_; you're making quite an impression on the men in dark suits."

You don't say anything and Sam nudges his elbow against yours to open your mouth.

You stutter out _okay._ You say, "Thank you," and she just rolls her eyes away from you.

"Ya'll can drag the girl outta Hicksville..." she jokes, and her impression of a country drawl is really no worse than the ones you've heard from Sam. You laugh along and you accept congratulations, and you have no idea what any of it means. You hope it means you hold a bit more sway the next time you ask to take Lord Tubbington to Disney World, but in all honesty, you know it'll probably just mean more work and an extra zero column on your pay check at the end of every month. It's not like you need the money, and the thought of more doesn't really do much to tantalise your senses, so it's hard for you to get too excited. You like it when your peers appreciate you, and you love when Holly is happy with the work you turn in, but the men in dark suits aren't high up on your agenda of people to impress.

When Holly says something about future successes, you lift your water glass to chink against her beer bottle, and you hoist your smile a little higher. She really does seem happy to see you doing well, and when she tells you the actual numbers, when she informs you that Team Quinn did slightly better this week in the online polling, your jaw actually does feel like it hits the floor. You ask her, "Really?"

"Absolutely Britt; like I said, you've got people talking. Everyone knows the election's a forgone conclusion, and we all kind of figured that the show would go the same way. You, my girl, have been the defining factor though; it's all about the _Brittany Effect._"

You feel your cheeks flush for what feels like the ten hundredth time today, and you're eternally grateful when the waiter arrives with all of your food. It doesn't stop Holly's incessant chatter about your upcoming plans for this week and how you've repaid all of her faith in you, but it does stop you from having to answer. Because, _really_… Praise is nice, but adulation is just… awkward.

It makes you dip your eyes down to your serviette. It makes Sam reach across and poke you in the side every time Holly looks away, just the same as he used to do when you were sat at your parent's table and the attention was all shining down on your shoulders. You try and tread your heel down onto his foot to get him to stop, but it only encourages him to prod at you further, and it's not until you hear Holly's monotone _guys_ from across the table, that you sit up straight and remember that you're not still aged eleven.

"Are you _sure_ you two aren't somehow related?" she asks you both as she shakes her head back and forth, "I know how it is in small towns… Everyone's your cousin, or your brother, or your sister or your lover..."

You assure her again that you're most definitely not, and you go back to picking at your salad. You listen closely when she lists out the people that you still need to get into contact with before your this week's guest slot on a show, and you tell her how close you and Sam are to finalising a theme for your Fondue for Two special, which you hope to film early next week.

All in all it's another good meeting. The praise is a little effusive, and you're glad that Holly seems to have left that subject behind, but overall you're smiling high and counting down the minutes until you can pile Sam back into the van, and go home to Santana.

Your mind pauses on that thought. On those words.

_Home to Santana._

Because you know the plans you're going to be making this afternoon aren't those type of plans, yet still; there's a certain sound to that phrase that tickles all of your senses. It excites you in a way you don't know how to think into words.

And, "Britt?" Sam says, and, "Britt?" Holly repeats, and,

"Huh?"

"What is _up_ with you, Chica?" Holly questions further, and you wonder how much conversation you missed. "Seriously," she says, "it's like you're all over the place today. Are you hungover, sick? Maybe your hat's on too tight?"

You tell her none of those. You shrug your shoulder.

"It was just a really long weekend," you say, "I'm still pretty beat from yesterday's drive."

She shoots you a look of momentary sympathy, and then she checks the watch on her wrist. "You have the rest of the day off, right?"

Sam says _sure_, and you grin your agreement.

"So go home and sleep; I'm done here if you are?"

You look at Sam and again he says _sure_. And you think that's it. You're actually half way risen from the table when she calls you back again. "Oh, Britt," she says, clicking her fingers fast in your direction, "before I forget completely; did Rachel Berry get a hold of you the other day?"

"Rachel Berry?"

"Short, dark-haired girl; your democrat rival."

You know who Rachel Berry is, of course you do, you just,

"Why was she trying to get a hold of me?" you ask, your face modelled into a picture perfect pose of puzzlement. You think back to the other day when she sidelined you at your office. You wonder if that was the day.

"No idea; or, some idea, but nothing that's been cemented. And she kept mentioning something about your cat… Are you studding out Lord T, now?"

She raises her eyebrow and you raise yours in return. You tell her _no_, and you explain briefly the idea Rachel had of getting your cats together for a date. It only raises Holly's other brow, it makes her shake her head; "This town never ceases to amaze me," she says, and you pretty much agree with her.

You'll agree with anything if it means you get to go home now.

You say your goodbyes, you fast-track Sam back to his apartment as speedily as is legally allowed, and you sit in the silence of the van for a short moment, just collecting all of your thoughts together before you turn back towards home. You're not thinking about any of the compliments Holly paid you, and you're not at all wondering about what or when exactly Rachel had wanted to get a hold of you, you're just thinking about Santana.

You're thinking again about how the roles have reversed and how it's not you sat in your home this time, waiting on her arrival. And you wonder what she's doing. And you wonder if she's missing you.

You don't fight the smile that licks at your lips as your thoughts flow fluid, and even though you're only ten minutes away from being by her side, you pull out your phone and you fire off a quick text message. You just send _I miss you_, and when she quickly replies with _how much longer, _you toss your phone onto the empty seat at your side and turn the key in the ignition.

…

You don't have a plan for when you turn the key in the door.

You have your smile still, and you have a whole cartload of butterflies doing a dance of anticipation all through your stomach, yet you don't have a plan. You don't know if you're going to burst through the door and find her waiting with kisses, you don't know if her shadows will have crept back up on her without you around to wish them away.

You just turn the key. Kind of slowly, kind of fast…

…And she looks up quick from where she's sprawled across the sofa, and you pause at the door. And she smiles.

And you smile. You smile like a crazy person who's happy with their asylum, and when her lips lift even higher and her dimples carve the largest of valleys into her cheeks, you step inside and you close the door behind you.

You step backwards and you lean against the door. You feel your nose scrunching.

"You're here!" she says, pulling herself up to sit straight and face you. "I didn't think you'd be back so soon."

She's still wearing the same t-shirt she had on this morning, but she's covered her legs with loose fitting jeans and she's pulled her hair up into a tight ponytail. She lifts her hand and pats at it now, and you think she looks a little nervous. Really happy, but really nervous. And maybe it's all of the happy that's making her nervous; you don't know, you just…

"I missed you," you say, as if that explains everything.

"You really did?"

"Totally."

Your words drop her eyes down and off to the side, and when she lifts them again, she tells you _me too. _

"I don't know what bug crawled up your cat's ass and died, though" she adds, shifting her expression close to irritated, "but he went into the back room as soon as you left, and he hasn't come out again since."

"He's probably just mad that I ditched him for the weekend," you tell her, almost certain of the fact. "You really shouldn't take it personally."

She snorts, or she laughs, and she insists there's no way she's taking it personal;

"I didn't want his company in the first place; I just don't want you to think I neglected him or something."

"I'd never think that," you assure her, and she nods her head satisfied.

You're still standing against the door and she's still sat in her spot on the sofa, and even though there's absolutely nothing stopping you from walking over and claiming her touch, you wait a moment longer. You take the time to place your keys and your phone up on the little shelf that runs next to the door. You make a little more time to pull your arms out of your jacket and adjust your shirt.

Her eyes stay on you.

You kick off your shoes and you reach for your hat, and she speaks;

"Leave it Britt; it looks cute."

So softly.

And you step away from the door and she stands up from the sofa, and you meet her somewhere in the middle. She catches her fingers to yours, and then you're pulling her towards you, and,

"I changed my mind," she says, staring up into your eyes. "Lose the hat."

Because she wants to kiss you, you can tell.

When she lets go of your hand and goes to reach up towards your head, you lean back and you play for a moment with just the slightest of distances. "But I thought you said the hat looks cute," you tease, and she lifts herself up to her tiptoes.

You lean back again.

You laugh at her efforts. You call her _Shawty _when she stretches herself up and your height still evades her, and when she pops her lips out in a pout, it only makes you laugh a little lighter. You aren't expecting her to go for your soft spots. You're used to the way that Sam seeks out your sides with the points of his fingers to try and tickle your will to bend and meet his own, but you don't expect the poke from Santana. You don't expect to see the gleam in her eye when she realises how easy it would be to reverse the roles of teaser to teased, yet…

Her hands go to your sides and you see that glint in her eyes, and "San…" you say. Yet her lips are no longer pouting and she's crafting herself the largest smile as she leans in towards you;

"Looks like _Shawty's_ got your number, BrittBritt," she sing-songs out, and then her fingers are finding soft flesh through the fabric of your shirt, and you're still smiling large or you're laughing hard and you're pushing her away, and you're bending forward to protect yourself from further torment, and;

"Ha!" she hollers, as your head feels lighter.

She steps back away from you and she's twirling your hat slowly round and around on the index finger of her left hand, and you witness the largest single dose of smug you think you've ever seen as a gigantic grin settles down across her lips. She's so pleased with herself; so cocky in her posturing.

You step towards her.

You hold your gaze on her eyes real tight, and when she glances to your lips, you know it's not the delight of a play-fight that she's really seeking; you see her soften for you, and you smile.

And you soften in response.

You forget about the hat she holds victorious in her hand, you forget about the plan to distract her with kisses before making to grab it back, and just,

"Hey," you say when your arms slide about her waist, and you forget about everything.

She drops your hat to the floor, her arms copy yours, and she slides them around your waist the same. She says her own _hey; _her eyes fall to your lips again, and she lifts herself up to kiss you. Her mouth hungry, her tongue quick to lick at your lips and ask that you open up to her. You lose yourself in the feel of her hands as they lift to tangle up in your hair, and then you find yourself pulled tighter against her.

So tight you feel it everywhere.

Like a tingle that begins in the place where her fingers find touches, before journeying down to trickle the feeling into all of the spaces between all of your toes. And you go with her flow; you let her lead you liquid-like through a kiss that swells your lips and then attacks the line of your jaw, before she sucks hard on the sensitive skin just below your ear.

And you hear her.

You hear her say again how much she missed you. And you feel her.

You feel her teeth as her mouth closes tight on your skin.

And…

…_fuck_, you think, and you arch hard into the feeling. Because you want more. Of this. Of her. Of, "San," you say, when her lips pull away from you. When you hear her say _Brittany _the way that she does, you swear she's set the room spinning through rotations, because she's kissed you to the couch, and the cushions catch the backs of your legs, and again,

Like dancing. Yet you dip beneath her, and her arms hold you steady.

Maybe _heady_.

And you think it's not the room spinning, it's _you_ spinning, or she's spinning you. You just know that everything's rotating and your up has become her down, and the sofa sits beneath you and she sits herself astride you, and her tongue takes, and her teeth rake, and her _hands_…

Such hot hands.

You feel them beneath her kiss, you feel them creeping across your sides and directing all of your shirt buttons to come undone. One by one, like magic and sorcery, and fingertips which trace spells across skin as she ushers you onward inside of the moment. And you breathe, hot breaths, and you moan;

Like sighs, like sounds of _more_…

And her mouth takes more. And her hands hold more.

And she makes more words. Such _hot _words and _pretty_ words about wanting and needing and _fuck;_ when her hands palm your breasts, and her fingers graze the peaked points of your nipples and you buck,

And _fuck_ you echo. Because, _San_… and the fast way her fingers are pulling the edges are your bra aside, and her tongue is touching, and then her mouth, surrounding you, sucking hard and tight against you.

She slides her tongue down.

Her fingers follow.

Even faster now; and you flinch, and your muscles flutter through a stutter as she catches your eyes with her own. So dark, so desperate, and "San…"

You breathe it. And her eyes go down, and her fingers fumble with your belt and her mouth meets your skin again; harder than before, heavier than before. She doesn't pause to process the moment, she doesn't stop to surrender her gaze to your body when she releases the button on your pants and pulls at your zip…

Her hands grab at fabric, speeding fast past your thighs, and her mouth,

So hungry.

And her fingers; pushing your legs apart. And her hot breath and her heavy breath, and her tongue sliding quick. You moan a sigh as she drags it harsh across the silk spun feel of your panties, and when her lips suck pressure hard against you, you grind, and you gasp…

And need courses through you. More than before - like _nothing_ before.

You're sure. Like, you're _so_ sure… so _fucking_ sure. And your hands fall to find her, and you touch a shoulder; you find her ponytail beneath your grip, and you tug, and you pant, and, "_San…_" you say, you moan.

Like you're calling her. Because you need her here.

You _need…_

Yet,

Her fingers stumble to that place where the edges of your underwear sit flush against your skin, and she tugs down. And you tug up, again, your hand still holding the hair of her ponytail as she seeks to lose herself below the line of your sight.

You say _Santana_.

You fight with your body to quiet its reactions… yet _heat_. So much heat as her fingers forego pulling your panties down, to push them aside, and her thumb slides slick between your lips and you feel…

And you _feel_…

And, "_Santana_"_…_ You say it, you plead it, you beg desperate because you need... You need _her_; not just inside, but outside. And again, "Santana," and again.

You feel the drag of her tongue against the hottest part of you, and there's no cloth to cover up your intimacy; there's nothing but her mouth and her lips and the urgency with which she pulls you tight up against her. And you feel surrender sweeping through you with rough abandonment… you feel everything but _her_… you feel…

Fingers, searching.

And you tense. Your body acting on auto-pilot; shifting an inch backwards, pulling you away from her tongue and her touch. Because, god_…_ Just, _god._

When you move your body, her eyes open up on you, and you witness the silent raging of her storm. Her gaze flits about your face, lightening fast, it streaks down across your skin, and down again, to her hand, no longer moving now.

You whisper her name. Her eyes meet your eyes.

Her gaze widens as if surprised and she starts to lift her fingers. Yet…

That's not what you want, nor what you need.

You slide your hands to seek her shoulders, and you tug gently on her t-shirt. You say _Santana, s_oftly this time, and you move your body back down beneath her. You smile past the shadows you spy in her eyes. You smile certain and sure.

Her lip quivers.

She bites it.

You urge her body up until your close enough to kiss her bite, and then you pause.

Her fingers resting still against you.

And you slide your hips.

You put everything you want to say inside of your eyes and you stare it into her with a depth you're only just discovering. And your mouth makes words, like wishes heard, and you say;

"Kiss me, San… Please, just…"

Just…

And she kisses you. She buries you beneath her breath, and her tongue touches all of the empty spaces inside of your mouth, and you feel the flicker of her flame as she licks it across your lips; you feel the flicker of her fingers. Searching soft…

You breathe _San_ and she listens. She replies.

Her mouth to your ear, her words somewhere deeper…

Somewhere like _Britt_ and_…_

"_Brittany_," she says, and she calls your eyes open. She beckons another kiss to your lips and tilt to your hips; she lifts herself up,

Just her head,

And her eyes.

Like she's looking inside you and she's seeing it all. And again your hips slide, or her fingers slip, or you both glide, and…

"_Santana…" _you say, inside of a breath as she moves inside of you.

Not fast; but slow. _So _slow. Like she's savouring the sensation now and measuring her touch. And _you_ see it all, inside of her eyes. You see the want and the desire and the need and the love; you see so much love it burns through your body and wakes words which ache and shake your centre.

Words like _soul_ and _mate _and _souls_ that _mate. _

You feel that close to her. You feel that force of divinity as her fingers find a rhythm that your body naturally reacts to, and you feel positively holy as her thumbs swipes upwards and your hips buck hard.

And harder.

You pull her down against you, and your lips seek her lips and she kisses you.

Soft.

She wraps you up in a paradox. Because her fingers are crashing her passion inside you now, yet her tongue traces your lips so gently… and your body arches lost against her, and she holds you there, perfectly poised…

Perfectly hers.

She pauses.

Her tongue dips between your lips and her fingers flex beneath your folds, and her thumb,

Like a compass point. Leading you to that place where the only name you know is hers. And you make it your mantra, you make it your prayer… And again her hand slams hard, and your hands twist tight in her shirt, and you place _fuck_ next to _San_, and you plead…

…_Yes…_

You plead _more. _And her mouth hits your ear, breathing out words which urge you forward, making sounds which spur your body on to smash up against her; because she wants you to come for her. She's asking you, or she's telling you, or…

"…_San…" _you say,

Or,

…_Yes…_

Or you hear _Brittany,_ and she explodes inside you. Or you explode around her. She fills every inch of you and you count every star. You float, and you fall, and… _Magic. _

_She's_ magical.

And she's yours.

And your hers.

And it's magic.

…

Like an enchantment which lasts as long as she holds you. Or as long as you hold her.

You hold each other for a long time; you count your breaths instead of the minutes, and when the beat of your heart hits calm instead of crazy racing, you release a sigh of contentment to break the silence. You stretch your body beneath her - closer if possible - and when all you hear in return is her grunt in your ear, you speak.

Or you giggle, you think, and then you speak;

"That was sexy, San," you say, and you don't really mean the grunting.

She just buries her head deeper against your neck, and again you giggle. Light and carefree, still floating above the clouds. You lift a hand and twirl her ponytail through your fingers, and you shift a little more beneath her. You rub your skin against her denim covered legs. You make another sound, you sigh out more contentment; "Actually, that was _really_ sexy. I've never had a welcome home like that before."

She holds her silence and you hold her, and your fingers travel from her ponytail to the little wisps of hair that adorn the base of her neck. You tease out a slow tickle. You dip beneath the line of her t-shirt and you smooth across the skin on her shoulder. And you smile.

Perhaps 'smile' isn't even the right word for it; you _shine_.

Like magic.

Because… there's still nothing about this which daunts you. You can handle her silence as easily as she just handled you, and, you think, the way that she just handled you is probably the reason for her silence. You pretty sure she didn't plan it this way; you're sure that the girl who gives you gifts of favoured sweatshirts and late night bouquets, didn't mean to replace her reticence with fingers boldly unbuckling your belt and panties pushed aside for quick fixes…

It's a thought which lifts your grin to greet your lips though, because for a quick fix, you feel quite put together. Quite deliciously put together.

And her silence doesn't daunt you.

You do wonder what she's thinking, you wonder…

"San…" Out loud; your head turning a little to bring your lips to the top of her head. "…If I go out and come back in again, do you think maybe we could do that again?" And you wonder, "I could actually get revolving doors installed; then we could just keep doing it, like, we'll probably have to stop for food and water, and when Tubbs comes out of hiding we'll have to take it to the bedroom if we don't want to corrupt his feline eyes, but…"

Her head lifts a little beneath you, and you still your words in favour of a smile.

"I didn't mean to…" She says, and you wish she was looking at you so she could see your eyes roll. She stops and you tug at her ponytail; you bring her eyes the rest of the way to meet yours.

"You didn't mean to, what? Make me feel amazing? That's kind of selfish, Santana; I thought we were friends."

"Britt," she says, and you lift your eyebrow.

"In fact, we're _awesome _friends… It's in the code that you make me feel amazing; I'm not letting you take it back."

You're teasing her, you know. You're making light of her silence, and lifting weight from her words… You just, you're not letting her feel bad for making you feel so good. Sure it was rushed, and for a moment you almost lost her to the lust of having;

But _magic. _

You felt it, and she made you feel it, and you want her to feel it too. Or, you know that she feels it too… You just want her to let herself feel it. You still just want her to be free.

It makes you tug her ponytail again even though her eyes are still on you. You tug at her restraint though; you wrap your fingers around the tie that binds her hair and you slide it loose. She furrows her forehead; you lift your lips. "Also pretty," you say, "I like when you wear yours down too."

You stroke the kink out of it, you run it through your fingers, and she bites a grip of her lip. She looks like she's biting hard. "I didn't mean…" she starts again, and you hold your hand still. "To make you feel like…"

"Amazing," you provide, and she dips her eyes.

"Sure. Like that… But, not… I wanted to be…"

You bite your own lip, hard, so as you don't just kiss her. You know that's she's struggling, you think you know what she's trying to say, and you say it for her. You still tease her with your tone, "You want me to fetch some candles, San, because I have loads in the cupboard in the kitchen if you do?"

It lifts her eyes again and she looks frustrated. She sighs. "I just wanted to be different."

And it stops you.

It drops your teasing.

It holds your caress in her hair still for a second, and it takes away the lift to your lips. You thought this was just about the rush through lust…

You thought,

"How?" you ask, because you're not sure what to think.

She pauses and you feel her breathe against you; long and soulful and let out on a sigh; "I didn't want to just… Just _fuck_ you, Britt; you're better than that, you're…"

"You think you just _fucked_ me?"

She looks at you. You feel the roughness of denim scrape against your skin as she shifts her body against you, as she slides more to the side to hold her head on her hand and not on your shoulder. And she looks at you.

And you look at her.

"In Urban Dictionary terms, you probably did," you continue, "but in awesome friend terms, you just make me feel amazing. I'm not joking about the revolving door."

You drop your gaze to find her lips, and you don't find them lifted. You whisper _San_; you ask her _what is it_ and she closes her eyes.

She speaks.

Almost silently and inside of a monotone, she tells you that she's never done anything but fuck before, she's never done anything but, "…With _Quinn_…" she says, and you involuntarily flinch.

"…With _anyone_, Britt, it was just… it _hurt_."

And you think of all the ways it might have hurt her. To just fuck and be fucked. To not love or be loved. To not be touched and held and tasted, and revered within each moment. Even you, with your naked adventures and your fun and your frolics, even then you followed through every caress with a love of what you were doing. You've never fucked someone nasty.

You've never been nastily fucked.

"Does this hurt?" you ask her, and her eyes find yours.

They're still so dark, yet they're desperate in a different way, like she's desperate for you find her words, or she's desperate for you to give her new meanings. She shakes her head _no._

"No?" you check.

"No way, Britt, not like that."

"But a different way?"

She bites her lip and you lift her t-shirt, just a little, just to smooth the skin above her hip with the soft pad of your thumb. "Sure," she says, and you trace a small circle.

"Like how?"

"Like…" she closes her eyes and you continue your caress, "…Like I still know I don't deserve you. Like I spent all day trying to think of a plan, and all I can think about is how to get Quinn speaking to me again so she doesn't go psycho, or how I can keep my abuela sweet so I can manage to meet you for a pathetic five minutes here and there, and…"

"San…"

"No, seriously, Britt; I'm so terrified of my own fucking shadow, I can't even pretend that I know how to make this mess better… I've got nothing."

"Not nothing," you say, and you hold her stare.

And you see her hurt.

And you make a plan for more than nothing.

It's a tentative thought when it first forms, but you figure that all plans start off tentative and only really become solid when you voice them out loud. You voice out loud a way to move you both outside of the moment; you shift your skin a little more against her legs, you shift the whole of your body until you can lift yourself to sitting, and you back away from words too solemn with talk of something normal and boring, and _food_…

You tell her how you only ate a salad at lunch and how you think so much better on a full stomach. You watch her watch you as you pull yourself up from the sofa with your shirt still open and your pants kicked from your ankles. You let all of the effusive fall out of your mouth and you possibly pull a dance step or two as you lift up the gloom and sing loud the radio jingle for a local pizza place… "And they deliver," you say, her eyes still on you, "so I can take a quick shower and it'll be here by the time I'm out. Then we can get down to some serious planning; we'll think of something, okay?"

"You really believe that?"

"I'm the small town girl who got famous from a webshow about cats and cheese; I pretty much believe I'm capable of anything at this point."

And finally she smiles, like maybe she believes you, and you find your smile right back.

…

You do everything exactly the way that you say you will. You order the pizza, you take a shower, you fill your tummy, and then you aim to make plans. You're still on the sofa, though you take opposite ends now, and you're facing each other over the empty pizza box.

It's you who starts the conversation off, who says to her, quite simply, "So, what is it you want?"

"Just like that?"

"Sure, why not? If we figure out all the things you want, then we can see which are easily achievable and which we need to work on. I can get out my poster board if you like? Sometimes making lists helps."

"You make lists?"

"Well, no, but… I _can_ make lists, if you want me to?"

She smiles and nudges the pizza box into you with her feet. "I think we can work without a poster board," she says, and you take the box away from between you and you place it on the floor.

"Awesome. So, what do you want?"

You keep your voice high and light because you know how much she wants to drop her own tone down, and you're being the good cop to her bad. Or the good thoughts to her bad… Or,

"You," she says, and her toes touch yours.

It scrunches your nose with your smile, it reconsiders your thoughts. "Okay," you tell her, "I think that one falls under the easily achievable, so…"

"How do you figure that, Britt?"

And if you were closer you would kiss her.

"How do you not figure that, San?"

"Because of everything standing in our way, maybe."

You tilt your head and you see the problem; she's got it all backwards and confused and you understand why it looks impossible from that angle. You move your feet forwards until they sit either side of her knees, and you lean back a little against the armrest behind you; "But, you're forgetting something really, really important, Santana. Like, I'm kind of already yours; and I get that there's _people…_or, things, that don't want me to be yours, but, it's not really up to them. Honestly, I don't even think it's really up to us."

You shrug your shoulders and she looks at you, and you lower your eyes and you bring them slowly back up. "I'm yours, okay?" you say again, "You've achieved me already; what's next?"

And she looks at you.

She whispers _abuela. _She whispers _Quinn_.

She mutters words foreign you don't understand. She says something about _shame_ and _family _and you understand just fine. And again you get it, why it seems so much.

You lean forward and your fingers find her toes, and you pull them towards you. You cradle them in your lap and you smile at the way she doesn't find flinches; "I still have to find where you're ticklish," you tell her, and you see the change of direction configure her frown. "As for your abuela and Quinn, as for everything, we need to break it all down I think; like when Lord Tubbington couldn't digest his food properly after he got sick from so many smores, and we had to blend his biscuits down and give him a liquid diet."

She frowns further.

"You fed your cat smores?"

"No; he stole the smores. We fed him a liquid diet."

You see the corner of her lip lift, just slightly, and you nudge at her hip with your toe; "So who should we liquidise first? Who's the biggest problem?"

And she smiles, and then she falters, and then she dips her eyes.

You watch her eyebrows draw in and you see her thinking it through, and you lean yourself forward again when her words come out as a whisper; "I don't know Britt. Short term, I guess Quinn; maybe if I can, if _we_ can…"

"What?"

"Keep her in the dark until she goes back to Yale? Stop her from blowing a gasket and bringing it all down around us… Just… If she's not here, if she can't…"

She leans back and looks at the ceiling. She blows out a breath.

"If she can't what?" you ask.

"Honestly Britt, if she thinks you're fucking with her, it's not just me she'll take that out on. You've got your job and your career, and now she's all tied up in that, and-"

"Bunkum," you say, only you still think _fuck 'em_.

It creases her forehead further. It quiets her words.

"I get that Quinn's a little crazy," you offer, "and I kind of understand a little of why she went all crazy; I even understand why you want to keep this all a secret until she leaves, and I have no problem with that. But San," you say, and she sighs and she listens, "it'd be really stupid of her if she tried to fuck with me; I'm a whole lot more dangerous than this face would suggest."

And you wink.

And you smile.

And she purses her lips.

Like a pout, but softer; and if you were closer you would kiss her.

"I've been dancing since before I was walking," you continue, "the strength I have in my legs alone is enough to squeeze the life from most larger than average-sized mammals; I'm not scared of Quinn. I don't think you should be either."

"It's different," she says.

You ask her _how._

She shrugs her _don't know_ and places her hand around your calf. She squeezes gently. "These are definitely killer legs though, Britt," she says, and you flex your muscle, just a little.

When the silence finds her, you let her hold it. You satisfy yourself with tracing touches between her toes, and when she finally does speak again, it's wrapped around a question; "Don't you wanna know?" she asks, and it's your turn to dip your brow. "How I ended up sleeping with Quinn?"

"Oh."

You say.

_Oh, _you think.

Because sure, probably, you think you want to know. Yet, really…

"Do you want to tell me?" you ask.

She's biting her lip and her hand is a touch tighter on your leg, and when she lifts her eyes you think that she probably doesn't. Yet, _sure_ she says, "there's not much to tell anyway."

And she tells you.

She tells you that for a long time after the shit hit the fan, they didn't even look at each other. She tells you how at that time she didn't really have anyone; "…Quinn was top of the tree and she made it the law. Finn played it the same with the jocks…"

She tells you about the plot twist, about how Finn was already securing himself to Rachel's side, and then…

"I guess Quinn had no one either," she says, and you follow her words confused.

"But I thought she was super popular?"

"Yeah, but no one else knew her nasty secret, Britts… She still had all of her ass kissers, but, I don't know. I think she wasn't done punishing Finn for his part," she breaks off for a moment and looks up at you, "I told you how he agreed with her getting the baby flushed, yeah?"

You shake your head _no._

"Yeah, total fucking waste of a dream he turned out to be," she says, and she drops her eyes again. "I guess he didn't have any shame, because he was up in Berry's pants in no time, and…"

"And?"

"And I was up in Quinn's."

She doesn't smile. She doesn't smirk.

She takes her hands off of you and she folds them together in her lap, then she focuses her eyes as far away from you as she can. She tells you with quiet words how when Quinn invited her over to her house, she hoped so bad that it was a path back to that messed up thing they called friendship. She tells you that Quinn was different; "…Almost soft Britt; like she was broken and…"

She sighs. She wrings her hands together.

You listen to how they drank a whole lot of Quinn's parent's wine and how when Quinn touched her, when she sought her lips in a desperate kiss, she thought maybe;

"…I don't know. I thought she was making us even or something; I thought it was forgiveness."

It wasn't. She tells you. It was just a place for Quinn to bury her own shame and wallow in the pain of it. A place to make the pain work for her; "She learned how to pull my strings that night; she figured it all out. I took Finn from her, and she took…"

"She took what?"

"Everything. Maybe… Like, I didn't know, Britt, not for sure. I thought about it, a lot; but until then I hadn't _done_ anything. I wasn't sure."

She tells you that Quinn made her sure, she made her certain, and then she made her want. Like a sickness. Because she controlled her with touches; with too long fingernails that would scrape down her skin and cauterise her senses, with teeth that bit too tight and with hands that held to hurt.

"She gave me what I wanted," she tells you, "and then she made what I wanted something bad. I think…" She pauses to catch her thought, and you pause to catch your breath. Or to hold your breath. "…It all makes sense to her, you know? Like, she wanted Finn and that perfect future, and I fucked that up for her; she's just trying to even out the score. She's just taking what she deserves."

And there it is again; that word.

_Deserve._

And, _maybe?_ You don't know.

It's hard enough to follow the threads and to untangle the threads, without having to weigh your judgements upon the threads also. Like, you get it; Santana did a pretty mean thing to Quinn, and that mean thing led to lots of mean things, and so Quinn sought to match her for meanness, and…

"Bunkum," you say again, and again it crafts her face into a look of confusion. "I get it San, kind of, really I do, but _Honey_," you say, and her eyes lock tight on yours. You lift yourself up and you reverse your ends; you bring your face up level with hers and you hover in that place right above her lips. "I think we already agreed on what's deserved; didn't we?"

You lift your eyebrow and she looks to your lips.

"We did?" she asks.

And you kiss her, once.

"We did. Last night. Before you made me get all naked."

You kiss her twice.

"I remember that," she says, and she smirks behind a smile.

"Right," you say, and you dip to kiss her a third time. "So… I'm kind of thinking that the thing you want isn't so bad anymore. And I think that if you want good things then you deserve good things…" You pause and she lifts her lips up to you, and you kiss her for a fourth time. "I also think," you continue on, yet she stifles a laugh at your continued thoughts and it makes her body shake beneath you. You pause once more to raise your brow; "Something amusing you, San?" you ask, and she bites her lip and you start again. "I also think that we need to agree that you're staying again tonight…"

"Agreed," she says easily, "anything else?"

You say _really_. She says _sure._

"I text my dad this afternoon; he knows I'm alive. Where I'm alive isn't so important."

"It kinda is to me," you tell her, and her eyes drop back down to your mouth.

You smile. She asks you what you're thinking now.

You ask what she's thinking.

"I'm thinking I want to talk more about what we deserve…"

She lifts herself up on her arms, and her tongue pokes out to wet her lips and you lift yourself back from her; "You sure do like talking a lot," you tease, and you lower yourself gently; rubbing your nose soft against hers before pulling away. "Can't I just show you what I think you deserve?"

Her eyes widen darker and her lips twitch a grin. "You could do that," she says slowly, as if considering the option carefully, "or I could show you _properly_ everything you deserve."

"That could take a lot of time."

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. I'm a hotshot TV superstar and I regularly donate to charity; I think that's pretty deserving, San."

She's straining below you a little to get up, but you push your weight against her. You quiet her with a simple kiss, and with a much better option;

"I also think," you say, nudging her nose again, "that a division of labour would serve both our purposes better. And we could save time."

She rises. You let her.

You take her lip between yours, you reacquaint it with your tongue. You make her words a little breathless; "But I want to take my time, Britt…"

"Right. And the more we save, the more there is to take, so."

She pulls you down, and you press against her, and then you kiss her all the way to a place called standing. You lead her feet and you dance again, and when you get to the bed, you tip and you twirl and you land in that space right above her space. Just above her eyes and her lips and her hips and her _body. _And you smile.

And you press against her the way she deserves. And she pushes against you.

And you plan once again to make her the happiest.

…


	17. The Making And Taking Of Time

A/N 1: As always, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's reading, reviewing, and doing their thing with the favourites and follows. I really do appreciate it, so thank you :)

A/N 2: Brittana is Love. Stay strong and ship it. And never let assholes destroy your dreams. They're yours. Keep believing in them.

...

You feel her against you before you're fully awake.

Like a dream which seeps through to reality, you're aware of nothing but her. You've been aware of nothing but her for hours now; before sleep and inside of sleep, she's all that you have space for. She made your spaces hers.

Deservedly so.

Because you've done this kind of thing before. You've done this and then some and you've fashioned the shirt, but…

No.

Not like _this_ you haven't. Not ever like this. When you'd danced her to your bed and dipped down above her, you'd assumed that your way would be the way that you'd go… That you'd lead her through twirls and swirls of delight, that you'd deserve her until the ends of the earth, and then she would deserve you right back. Yet;

Not quite. Not wholly. That wasn't exactly the way that you led her through the dance.

Your fingers had tripped light, you were mapping each moment, and then…

…_Touch me, Britt…_

She led you. Not touch me here, or here; but _there_. Her hand had taken yours.

She'd slid both your fingers through her wetness together, and once she'd shown you the way back inside, she brought her wetness to yours. And you gasped at that sensation; at her, touching you, touching her. Like a song and a dance and a perfect symphony, where you saved time, and then you made time, and then she showered you with minutes.

And hours. You think, all of the seconds. And the thirds. And multiples thereof.

Many multiples.

Many hours.

And you feel her against you now. You feel her lips and her tongue, tasting traces across your back. You don't remember falling asleep on your tummy, you don't remember falling asleep at all, yet your stomach faces the sheets and her tongue is touching you awake, and…

…_Mmmm…_

You moan, and you mean _good morning._

Not that the light in the room is saying morning. It tells you instead it's still dark outside, it tells you she's only awake to take more of your minutes; to extend your night out through infinity, to…

"Brittany…" she whispers into the dip of your back, and you feel the warm shiver pass through you. "…Are you awake?" she asks.

"Hmmm," you say, because, really… Who ever knows for sure?

If it feels like a dream and it looks like a dream…

And she kisses you, lower. You feel the sheet ghosting a caress across your ass as she pulls it down to trace your thighs, and again you shiver. Not cold, but hot. Because her lips draw satisfaction from the skin on your hips, and her hands ease your legs apart, and your hands.

You grip them into your pillow, because you've felt her tongue on you so many times tonight and you know what to expect; yet… Her mouth travels upwards and her words find your ear.

"I was waiting for you to wake up," she says.

And she finds you with her fingers. And you've felt her hard and you've felt her soft, and you've danced to the beat of her quick, quick, slow, yet so _gently_ she touches you now. So slightly she runs her fingertips across you, like a tickle, or a tease, or just gentle because she's taken you. Over and over.

And you're not sore, you don't ache in a bad way, but you are tender.

And she's tender.

Like, "Is this okay, Britt?" she asks, and your body answers for you.

Your hips rise _hi _to guide her inside you, and your muscles hold tight, and she whispers; "I missed you already..."

Her mouth right next to your ear, her words turning your head to find her lips. Like an awkward angle, or the perfect angle, because she's moving her body against yours with a lumbering slowness, and her tongue touches yours, and you strain to kiss her, and she takes you tender.

Or she loves you tender.

Because the one says the same as the other.

You move beneath her, through her slow in and out. You hear yourself moan beneath her when fingers which aren't holding you inside, move forward to press against you outside. And you press against her. Your hips grind down hard to seek the new source of friction, and she flutters you through the slow wake and bake, through the long drawn out drive towards pleasure.

She treasures you.

She kisses you. She whispers words just pretty to your ear;

Because, _"God, you feel so good, Britt…_

…_So good."_

And, _beautiful_, and more words, different words which stroke tones in a different tongue, which you can feel even though you don't comprehend, and;

"_Brittany…"_

Just _Brittany_ she says, when you moan a different moan, when your body tenses taut and made for breaking, and she kisses you. She stills you. She carries you slowly over the edge and she cradles you through the fall.

And _Brittany,_ she breathes into your ear, and _I…_

Just, I.

…

Like _Aye Karumba_ you think, as you ride out the wave.

Or the eye of the storm.

Or just,

_I love you_, you know when her eyes meet yours; when she falls by your side and gathers you up in her gaze. Just as gentle as she touched you; just as intimate.

And _hey, _you say.

And she looks at you.

And, _I love you_, you think, and you lean forward and kiss her. You kiss her slow and deep. You kiss her like you mean to keep her. Yet she keeps her silence when you pull back. She keeps the words locked away and she keeps you inside of her gaze; and it's more than enough to hold you certain. It's enough to lift your lips up on a smile as you make your way towards her again. And, kiss, and…

"Can I keep you forever?" you whisper, still soft and gentle.

"What would you do with me forever, Britt?"

"Do you need a specific plan, or should I just-"

"Kiss me again?"

"…Sure, I'd kiss you a lot, but I'd make time to-"

"No, Britt; kiss me."

And you dip, and you do. And you smile a lot more.

"How am I supposed to tell you, if you just keep making me kiss you?" you ask when she lifts up her lips, but she only smiles back at you. She lifts her lips again.

And _San_ you say, teasing yourself away from her, and making her mock up a sigh;

"Fine, I'm listening; what would you do with me?"

She pouts her lips large like the perfect pucker, and this time it's you who interrupts your own words. It makes her smirk as you kiss her once again.

And you want to tell her the dream; you want to say to her that you'd take her away from all of this, that you'd sail the seven seas with her until you found that place you could both call home. That you'd love her forever there. That you'll love her forever here. Yet;

"I think I'll be happy just keeping you, Santana; what we do with the forever part isn't so important."

"It isn't?"

"Not really; I mean, if you were thinking about dropping it all and joining the circus, I might have a few reservations. Lord Tubbington doesn't do so well around other animals, and, I don't know… all the sad clowns are kinda _creepy_…"

And she's looking at you like you're something kinda awesome.

"I wasn't considering the circus," she assures you, and you ask her;

"What were you considering?"

And she considers.

Her gaze drifts about your face; it trips light across your features before she rests back on your eyes. She looks between them, back and forth. She settles.

"It's seems weird just thinking about a future," she tells you, and you smile easy.

"Well, the future _is_ weird. Like, it's us, but it's then, but it's still us from now though, you know?"

"That's kinda deep, Britt."

"It's true though. If you could build a time machine, you could visit yourself; like, your future self, right now, because the future already exists and it's already happening. That's weird, right?"

She deepens her dimples. She nudges her nose against yours. "If I could build a time machine," she tells you, her lips brushing light against your lips, "I'd still stay right here."

"Yeah?"

And she kisses you. And her hand touches your stomach, and her fingers lead her down, and again she makes more time for you.

…

Time that stretches until your alarm sounds loud.

Time that's taken away by the first rays of sunlight that stream through your blinds to darken your day. Because… _No. _You want to pout it, you want to shout it.

Just, no.

And her lips downturn the same as yours do.

"I guess that means it's morning," you sigh, silencing your alarm.

"I guess," she answers, sighing the same

You have to guess because you weren't sleeping, and your night was a place that touched on forever, and…

"I don't want you to go," you tell her, and your heart hurts already.

It _hurts_.

And she hurts. You can see it in her eyes.

She looks at you brave though; she looks strong.

"I don't think it's time for forever yet, Britt," she says, and it's like you feel the opposite of strength. Yet you're by her side, and you're going to fight for her.

"I have some awesome theories on forever as well…" you say, because you do. They're kind of complicated though, and they're thoughts not really made for words, but still, "…Because if it's us in the future, San, and it's the same us now, that kind of means that forever is always, so…"

You trail off because of the way she watches you. Or the way she slowly closes her eyes and breathes in deep. And you ache, and;

"I have to go back," she says, and for this now you know that it's final. She makes the now less though, she offers you more; "It won't be like it was though, Britt."

"It won't?"

"It can't be. _I_ can't be."

She pulls herself up to sitting and she rolls her eyes. "God, that actually sounded more dramatic than Berry on a bad day. I mean it though; I'm done being everyone's whipping boy. I'm so sick of this shit."

You smile at the look on her face; the indignation and the low-simmering anger that twists her eyebrows down into a perturbed frown. You smile and you run your fingers lightly up her thigh. You shift your body closer to hers and you lift your head to place your lips to her skin, dropping the slightest of kisses to the curve of her hip. It changes her expression, it has her looking down at you from her place of sitting with more of a smile than a scowl marking her mouth, and you lean forward to kiss her again.

"Brittany," she whispers, and you wiggle your eyebrows, you touch your tongue to her skin and you tease a sensation, and you feel her breathe in and you feel her hold the breath. And,

"Santana?"

You say.

She sighs a reply, or her reply is a sigh, and you giggle against her. Because it hurts and you hate that you have to let her go, but you don't have to let her go right now. You still have your morning to make before work, and you want to make your morning with her. It lifts your body to sitting beside her, it stops your teasing touches long enough for you to tease her with your words instead. And you do.

You tell her you need to take a shower. You pull yourself up from the bed.

And her eyes don't leave you.

She bites her lip.

You want her to follow you, and so you wait; you wait while her gaze travels your body from your very tip, all the way down to your toes… You let her take that leisurely stroll and you pose before her. You stretch out a long yawn that becomes a sigh, that carries your arms above your head and twists your back from side to side. And then,

Because your fingers blaze a trail back down across the skin of your stomach, and her gaze is like a laser and you take one step back.

She pulls herself up from the bed.

"Going somewhere?" you ask, your hand hovering dangerously close to putting on a show before you lead her to the shower. And she doesn't answer, because she's on you. Faster than your thoughts can comprehend she smashes you back into the wood of your door and she attacks your neck with her lips and her hands grab your hands and they're up above your head again, and _Jesus-fucking-Christ, Britt_, she growls - she _growls_ - into your ear, and her one hand holds your two hands and her other hand rushes to rough at your breast with a pinch that primes you to arch up into her, and,

She can't get enough.

She tells you harsh as her lips leave your neck, she tells you she wants you again and again before she wraps her mouth tight around your nipple and sucks you hard into her mouth. And _god…_ You can't even…

Because,

You throw your head back against the door and you lift your leg to wrap tight around her, and her fingers are on you and you're so wet still, you're so damn ready for her to just fuck you into an oblivion where no other world exists. Because it _hurts…_

And the pain of her leaving is nothing as she pounds her way inside you. Like she's pushing home the point of every way she's touched you, like she's forcing each flourish of her fingers to imprint inside you and mark you hers beyond the moment. And it's so desperate, and you're so desperate, and you _cling _to her. You dig your hands into her back, you tense the muscle in your leg that holds her to you, and you tell her words… You _howl_ words, about harder and more and yes, and _fuck, San_… And you bite your lip, and your head hit's the door.

And more and more.

Like frustration. As if she's pouring everything inside of you inside of her touch and she's scared she won't be able to fill you, that you won't feel her or you won't believe when she's gone how much she was here. So she gives and she gives, and your legs buckle and you take it; you claw at her back with nails bit to the quick, and your teeth touch her shoulder and you bite down,

Hard. And harder she takes you.

And it hurts. Less than her leaving. It hurts like you want her inside you forever.

You say it. You break your lips from their bite, you bring them roughly to her ear, and you pant out exaltations to places far beyond infinity. Like nonsense words and sighs and moans that break her pattern and disturb her rhythm, and you say it…

Your voice guttural and grabbing at timid truths, because you love the way she's touching you and fucking you hers, and you say;

…_I love_…

And she hitches inside you.

…_The way…_ You say …_you're fucking me…_

And she pitches forward, her body pushing against her hand and her hand pushing against you, harder and more so and;

"Say it again…" she says, she commands in a tone as gutter-bound as your own, and you say it and you say it and she fucks hard inside you. Beyond all of her tentative touches and loving touches she fills you with her lust for you and her longing for you, and you take it all, and you want it all, and when you bite hard on her shoulder again and her fingers curl one last time to hit the spot that makes you scream, you give her your all and your everything after.

And you slump. And she slumps.

And you think it still hurts.

…

Within the warmth of the shower she tried to kiss you better. She soaped her touch across you like a loving caress, and she called you close with words like _baby_, spoken soft into your skin and pressed softer against your lips. And you told her you love all the ways that she touches you. And she touches you until the water runs cold and your skin sticks to her prune-like and wrinkled, like an image of your future self pressed together in the now.

She shares her towel around you when you step out to face the cold, and while you dress yourself in the bedroom with clothes for the day, she settles herself in the kitchen and calls new words like _coffee,_ and _Jesus, Britt, your god damned cat!_

It pauses you in front of the mirror. It makes a smile where your sad face was sitting.

When you make your way to find her she's sat in what you now think of as her spot, and Lord Tubbington, your _god damned cat,_ is sat in front of her on the breakfast bar, purring loudly while she pets at his fur. It gives you another pause and a higher smile. It gives you affirmations for everything you already know. You say _hey._ She grimaces in your direction.

You sit opposite her and you lift your pre-prepared coffee to your lips. You lower it down and you try really, really hard not to giggle at her cuteness. She just…

"He's making me do it."

"Huh?"

"First he tripped me up while I was trying to get dressed, then he pounces on me as soon as I sit down…" she pauses for a moment and looks from you to Lord Tubbington; "How the heck does he even jump that high, Britt?"

She looks genuinely intrigued, and you quite genuinely answer her;

"He choreographed a lot of my dance routines when I was younger, San; he's a lot more agile than he looks."

"No shit, 'cause looks about as agile as a beached whale."

She doesn't stop stroking him though, and you don't stop smiling at her. It's like, you love those spaces between what she says and what she does and what that tells you about who she really is and…

You sigh. Kind of happy. Kind of sad. Kind of stuck in the spaces in between.

She lifts her eyes from scowling faces at your cat, and she softens her brow, "What you thinking about, BrittBritt?" she asks, and you tell her;

"You."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I actually can't remember what I used to think about before I thought about you."

Lord Tubbington makes a sound of displeasure beneath a strangled _meow_, and you're not sure if it's because Santana's stopped stroking him, or because he knows what you used to think about before she started stroking you and it included a whole lot more of him.

It makes you lean across to pet his head.

"I think about you too, Britt," she says, and your nose scrunches with your smile.

You catch her eye across your cat, and you lose yourself to her look.

She really does have the most beautiful eyes you've ever seen; like, they're brown, and brown is _just_ brown, but on her it's so much more. You can see the depth of every different shade and beneath the shade you see _her._ Maybe that's the beautiful part…

You sigh again because you need some space to place that feeling, and her hand comes down to yours. She strokes Lord Tubbington's fur with your fingers and then she lifts your hand away. She leans forward to kiss your fingers; you lean towards her and curl your toes.

"I already ordered a cab," she tells you quietly.

And the room goes black.

Or you close your eyes.

"Okay," you say. And you pause.

Because all morning you've been chasing away this moment. Beneath every second she touched you and took you and buried herself inside you, you've been running from the realisation of all that's not yet possible. And you open your eyes, and you look at her, and,

"I don't have a plan," she tells you, and all you can say is _honey._

"I know what I need to do, but…" She stops and she doesn't look as if she has a single clue what she's supposed to do, or where she's supposed to start, or what she can call an end.

You squeeze your fingers tight around hers. You think and you think, and you bend your mind beyond possibilities and impossibilities and the words people use when they don't know the answers. "I guess," you eventually say, and she listens intently, "that we still need to break things down a bit. I'm working with Quinn all day today, so…"

You shrug tentative and await her reaction.

She drops her eyes from you, she brings them back;

"Are you worried?" she asks, and you can't help but smile. A small smile, just,

"No." You shake your head to confirm it, you lift your shoulders again in another small shrug; "Besides everything, we actually work kinda well together, and today is all about work. If she says something I'll just… I don't know, confuse her with my cunning wit and get Sam to point a camera in her face; she always smiles for the camera."

It lifts her lips and rolls her eyes, and you ask her what she's going to do about Quinn; what she _wants_ to do about Quinn.

"No plan, remember?"

"Has she tried calling you?" you ask next, and she shakes her head.

"Honestly Britt, the things I said to her the other night, I doubt she'll try calling for a long while."

"Which is… _good_?"

She drops her eyes again and you wait for what she wants to say, or for what she doesn't want to say. "I don't know," is all she eventually manages, and you ask for a little more. You ask what she means and you wait for her to tell you.

"Just, it's still complicated. I know what she is, okay, and I'm not saying I want to be _besties_ or something stupid like that, but… I've got you, and I get a chance of something better… Yet…"

You know she's asking what Quinn gets, and a large part of you wants to say exactly what she deserves.

That word, again.

With those big scales and those moral judgements, and those weights too heavy for you to measure against your conscience. You want to condemn Russell; you can't quite fathom Quinn. You can fathom enough to know that if she dares to hurt Santana again, if she dares to even think about a scenario where Santana is hurt and you hear her thoughts, then you will circumnavigate your conscience to kick her ass so hard she never forgets. But…

It's hard to have knowledge and not know what to do with it. It's hard to have your fury for her doused by secrets of something which you still can't imagine. It's like…

Santana has a point.

Because, in a way, your empathy leads you to find patterns in the fabric.

Like stolen pasts and stolen futures. And loss. And loss.

And losing.

You're not on the losing team and neither is Santana, because your empty arms stretch backwards and not forwards, and the sober knowledge that Quinn stands that side of the line on her own, tempers a lot of your less kind thoughts. It tempers your jealousy, and it tempers your scowl.

You don't let it temper your good sense nor your caution.

"Are you going to call her?" you ask, and when she doesn't answer, you don't push her. You believe that she doesn't have a plan and you believe that she has a lot to think through, and you also believe that she'll make her decisions with you in mind; that she'll be as cautious as you are when dealing with Quinn.

When you change direction to ask her about her family, her face hardens. Her lips draw themselves into a straight line, and she takes a deep breath in as she squares her shoulders against the storm. She answers you in Spanish, yet you don't ask for elaboration; not only do you understand her simple words, she gives you meaning all on her own.

"What family?"

Said hard. Hurting harder.

And you want to touch her again. You want to trace that look from her face and bring her between your legs and lose her again in a place called love until you're sure that she'll feel it forever.

Yet;

"My father's away pretty much full time between now and the election; that just leaves abuela and me to fight it out at home…" You see her bite her lip and you know the nonchalant bravado doesn't taste as true as she speaks it. "…It'll be fine Britt. At the end of the day, what can she really do?"

You think, nothing.

You don't know. Perhaps, physically not so much. But then, you're not sure that it's ever been about a physical bind when it comes to Santana and her ties to her grandmother. When she pulls her hand away from yours and looks to the clock on the cooker, you know exactly what she's thinking and you ask her, _how long?_

Like a death sentence, or a bad diagnosis, or words which don't want to be said.

She doesn't say them.

You don't ask again.

You just hurt.

More so when she's stood in front of you before the door to the outside, and she looks so small and she holds her suitcase in her hand, and;

You bite your lip. You don't want to be sad in this instant.

You don't want every moment that's happened, every touch and every kiss and every word wrung from wanting lips, to be lost inside of a moment where you cry for what you can't have instead of praising what you do have. Yet she looks so sad too.

And it _hurts._

And you swallow.

She says _Britt,_ so soft, so needing, and you close your eyes.

And she's on you. The suitcase is dropped from her hand and her hands are on your face and her lips are on your lips; and she kisses you. And she kisses you.

And you try not to think _goodbye._

…

When you pick up Sam your smile is different, and by the time you arrive at the campaign offices to liaise with Quinn, you still haven't quite managed to make the words to tell him why. You feel like you've swallowed a whole world inside of yourself, and even though Sam has known you forever and seen you through all the good and all of the bad, you can't speak it to him. You can't simplify things which don't have the words to describe them.

It leaves only work to wonder him with, and you focus on that at every turn in the road and at every red stoplight. You talk about your day's plans, you discuss it in great detail until you're sure that he's sure of your every minute and every meeting.

First you're taking Quinn for another shot on MTV News, then you're whisking her down to the studio where your guest spot will be filmed for this week's slot on another show, then you have a promotional shoot at one of the many places that'll be a polling station on election day, and then, you hope, you'll be free from Quinn for the day and set to take part in a meeting with Holly, Sam and your opposing team to discuss the possibility of some rival group activity, and then.

And on. And on.

He doesn't stop you once and he listens to your every word, and when you pause at the door to the campaign office, he tugs you back and slings an arm across your shoulder;

"Mercedes asked me to drag you over for dinner tonight. We can sink a few beers, put paid to the longest day at work I think we've ever faced."

"Is it strong beer?" you ask, and he rolls his eyes. "Seriously Sam, I'm gonna need more than a _Miller Lite _to get me through this day."

"That bad, huh?"

"Probably." Because you miss Santana already, and before you now lies Quinn.

When he nudges your shoulder, you attempt the first of the day's faked smiles, and you carry it through the door when Sam reaches across you to pull it open. You say _thanks; _your eyes scan the room.

And you see her.

She's sat at the same desk as before and she's talking into the same phone, and you even imagine that she's saying exactly the same words as you listened to her repeat over and over the last time you were here. You see her _differently_ though. You make fresh calculations as you look her over, and you come up with a whole new set of answers. Or questions.

And _Quinn,_ you say, when she hangs up the phone, and she looks at you, and she looks. You take a step towards her, you fashion your tone into that zone called neutral and you make the words roll from your tongue as you ask how she is, how her flight was on Sunday, if she's ready for your really long day today. It's like a monologue without meaning, and she answers you the same. Her smile looks wan, almost wary, and when she drops her head into her arms on the desk in front of her, you think she looks worse than she looked all the times you've seen her hungover and fragile.

You don't ask. You give her a moment.

The phone ringing at her side seems to startle her enough for her to lift her head, but she ignores the call. She pats her hands to her hair to fuss at her short ponytail and then she stands up before you. "How many weeks now until we're done with this?" she asks, but you know that she knows just how lengthy your schedule is.

You still answer; or Sam answers. He tells you both five weeks, and while you keep your sigh on the inside, Quinn actually groans out loud; "I swear this better all be worth it in the long run," she says, and you agree with her sentiments entirely.

Or almost entirely. Because you know what you're getting out of it… You fight the smile that tells you with tingles what you've already gotten out of it, and you consider.

You tilt your head to the sound of her words, and you ask; "Beating Rachel, right?"

"Of course, Brittany, what else _is_ there?"

She smiles another of her practised smiles, yet something touches her eyes, something which you look to see, and you tilt your head the other way. Because it's still all so _high school,_ and you know now how much deeper this goes than high school. You know the marks you've made against names on your own card, and you wonder again at the marks on hers.

Which of her scars cut the deepest and who wielded the knife.

And she looks at you. And you look at her.

"Shall we?" she says, raising her eyebrow, and you lead her towards the door.

…

Everything about the day has so far turned out fine. You suspect that's because you've all been far too busy to take time out and actually converse beyond the work environment, but as far as you're concerned, you really are fine with that. You've observed Quinn; you've been taking even more notes than normal when it comes to studying her actions and reactions to what scant words you do say, but mostly you're keeping your distance. Not just in the physical sense, but emotionally too.

You know yourself. You know how you soften when you see someone's hardship, and you've seen Quinn's… Yet you don't want to soften, because you only have to think for half a second how much you miss Santana already, and you're immediately reminded why you're keeping your distance from those who would seek to slide distance between you.

During your filming for MTV News, you'd been forced to stand as close as you could manage, and just as before you'd faked your way through an exemplary performance of friendship; you'd talked up your slot on last week's FashionistarZ, you insisted that Quinn is all sorts of _ace_ when it comes to letting loose and kicking up a spring-break style plethora of fun, and when questioned further, you'd raised your eyebrows, slid home a wink, and said you were certain that the conservative girls were the ones to watch, because it's always the quiet ones that take you by surprise.

At your side, Quinn had flirted and skirted around everything asked of her. She'd giggled quite shamelessly when you suggested spring break, and when you'd winked into the camera, her hand had fallen on your arm and her fingers squeezed lightly. "I owe it all to Brittany," she'd insisted, widening her eyes and seducing America, "she's been showing me the liberal side of life, and, well…"

She'd trailed off on the perfect innuendo and the interviewer had laughed along gaily, and you'd cocked your eyebrow as if leading conservative girls astray was your order of business, and a wrap had been called and you'd stiffened beside her. Or she'd stiffened beside you.

It was a stiffness which had delivered you to your next appointment, literally one floor up on another level, where tomorrow morning you'd be sitting with Quinn and choosing your top ten awesome tunes for the current election season. It's not anything near as exciting as you managed to hijack last week, but it's still exposure and it's still all going to count towards having you finishing first. Normally they have pretty big stars in to spin their top tens, so you're actually pretty lucky that you managed to book this slot at such short notice and with only Quinn to offer them.

And you had offered her to them. You'd introduced her to the floor manager and the lead camera man, you'd visited wardrobe and chosen what outfit Quinn wished to wear, and you'd sat through a quick session with hair and make-up as you talked about song choices with the producer and got everything lined up and in place for the morning.

Everything is going fine and you don't have far to go.

You're on your way in the van to your final destination with Quinn for the day, and once you're finished there you can drop her back at the campaign office, before you head back to Colorado Avenue and your final date with Holly and the others. Sam is driving; he insisted you relinquish the wheel back to him, and you're sat in the middle with Quinn to your side.

The radio is on and no one is speaking and no one is singing, and you can't help but compare the oppressive atmosphere of the here and now to the one you created just a couple of days ago with Santana and Sam in attendance instead. It makes you sigh.

It makes you wish you could just whip out your phone now and call Santana, and just say _hi._

You've text, of course you've text, but your spare minutes have been few and far between and you haven't had time to hear her voice since she left you this morning. And you miss her.

You miss knowing that today you won't be going home to her.

You sigh again.

And Quinn speaks at your side.

"I know what I have to hate about today, yet I'm not half as close to morose as you are. Is there something wrong?"

Her tone isn't light and airy, it's low and lacklustre and you ask before you think;

"Why are you hating on today?"

She leans back against the window and she turns her head the required distance to appraise you with her eyes. She lifts her brow before she turns away from you and you assume you're not getting an answer. She does speak though; more to the outside scenery than to you inside the van, and you turn to her to listen;

"My mother is giving a presentation to Families United tonight; my father's away and therefore I'm the designated family. My company's somewhat demanded, no matter my own plans."

"Oh," you say, and you shrug your shoulder. You try and keep it to that, you try your hardest to back away from the personal and just leave it be, yet; "What's Families United?" you ask.

"Exactly what it says it is. The conservative backbone of America rising up to protect our greatest institution," she looks at you and you dip your brow.

"Disney World?" you ask half serious, and she dips hers in return.

"No Brittany, nothing as important as that. We're protecting marriage; something about the last line of defence against sinners and…"

"And..?"

She doesn't answer and Sam takes the moment to speak up from your other side; "I'd personally much rather they worried about Disney World; I'm sure when two people love each other, the marriages can take care of themselves."

You look to him and back to Quinn. You watch her shrug her shoulder before she speaks;

"And there's the beauty of democracy. I'm fairly certain we won't be waking up the day after election night to any great gains for a conservative California."

Her lips lift a little at the corners and again she shrugs her shoulder.

"You don't think your dad's going to win?"

It Sam who keeps on speaking; you just keep on listening.

You study her eyes and her mouth and the twitch of her nose. You watch as she considers the question for a whole lot longer than you think is necessary; "That would be incredibly disloyal of me to admit," she says, bypassing you to rest her eyes on Sam, "I'm not stupid though; I'm a political science major at Yale and I'm top in each of my classes. When the writing's on the wall, it's the fool who ignores it."

"And the writing says he's losing?"

"The writing says he doesn't stand a chance against Berry."

She doesn't look particularly upset by the notion, and you wonder if it really is because she's more concerned about besting a Berry of her own. You almost ask; you're actually just running your tongue across your lips to find the moisture to make words, when once again Sam slides in first; "Why bother then?"

And you look at him, and you look at Quinn and you don't understand the question. It seems neither did Quinn because she asks him to elaborate, and when you pull up at the next set of lights, he turns again and asks; "The United Families stuff, and all this, like, rocking the vote and all; it doesn't take a genius to see you don't dig it so much. Why bother if it's all for nothing?"

He's smiling his most genuine Sam shaped smile and you can't help but grin up at him in return before turning your attention back to your right. Quinn has paused, quite literally, her lip between her teeth and her eyes glazing over for just a second before she answers; "I never do something for nothing, Sam."

And she shrugs, and her façade flicks on her brightest smile, and you think again of high school. You imagine the poses she pulled in front of her locker and the way she had students clamouring beneath her with a flick of her wrist and just a hint of that smile.

It reminds you of caution.

It makes you happier than anything when Sam pulls into the parking lot of the library you're overtaking with your makeshift Rock the Vote booth, and the conversation comes to an end. It's nothing too hectic; you're going to be signing some autographs and promoting the voting, while an Entertainment Weekly crew take pictures for their special feature in this week's magazine. You receive the minimal attention to your hair and makeup, it really is quite a casual shoot, and you and Quinn both don the special t-shirts they've had made up in your honour.

They say _Team Fabray_ and you feel quite sick wearing it.

You still fake out a smile just as wide as Quinn's as your picture is taken over and over. And you smile entirely genuinely when the woman photographer takes you aside afterwards and asks if there's a chance she can get your number. And she's cute, and she makes you blush just a little, and you dip your head before you answer; not shy, but, kinda coy like, kinda…

"That's real nice…" you say, and you really mean it. She's pretty, and she was really good at her job, and she seems a whole lot less air headed than your usual admirers, yet still; "…But someone else already has my number and I don't think they'd like it too much if I shared it with you, so,"

She smiles and she rolls her eyes and she tells you that you can't blame a girl for trying;

"I should've known I wouldn't stand a chance with Brittany S Pierce."

She turns and she walks away and for just a moment you primp.

A little.

You're sure that if Sam was by your side he'd dust off your shoulder and make some joke about pimping, but he isn't and he doesn't, so you smile to yourself. You smile not just because of the attention, but for the reason you turned it down.

And_ Santana, _you think.

And you think. And you smile.

Because for a moment it's not about missing her, it's all about having her.

Like memories cascading and invading your brain, and you think, and you think…

And "Brittany?"

And she's really not all that different when you look at her now. You can see the calculating Quinn in her eyes, yet you don't stop smiling, not straight away. Not when your mind was just so momentarily taken by all the ways you've been taken over the last two days.

So you smile. Then you bite your lip.

"What's up, Quinn?" you ask, and it's not at all exhausted.

"Oh, nothing's up, not at all." She puts her hand on your arm, and leads you over to some chairs and tables amongst the books and shelves. When she sits, you sit, and you rest your gaze on her with your eyebrow raised, waiting for her words.

"We just haven't had a chance to talk today; just us, and…"

You don't say anything. You don't change the blank expression you know your face is sporting. You let her words hang and you make her work for them.

She tilts her head just a fraction to the side and she leans in towards you, "…I was thinking," she carries on, "about what happened in Fairfield, and I believe maybe I owe you an apology."

Again, you just look.

You dip your eyebrow downwards… A touch of confusion.

"At the bar, Brittany? The things I said about you to Santana."

Ah.

You see. And you keep your face blank. Maybe hinting towards enquiry when you tilt your head the same way as hers. "I kind of don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on, you honestly expect me to believe that you weren't watching for longer than you let on?"

You shake your head. Slowly, side to side, as if maybe you think she's a little crazy.

She tilts her head the other way. Her eyes narrow.

"Look, I trust you Brittany; I've practically opened up my life to you here… I only expect you to trust me in return. How much did you really see?"

The question is direct and you take just a second to craft an answer. You shrug your shoulders and tight line your smile; "Honestly Quinn, I walked out and you and Santana were… I don't know, whatever you were doing, and then my phone rang."

You shrug again, just your left shoulder, like an after thought, and she leans back in her chair. You don't know if she believes you, you're not sure if that's relief in her eyes, or if she's just thinking through ways to change up her tactics. You don't wait for her. You smile, your really easy and wide Brittany Pierce smile, and you ask;

"What did you say about me, then? To Santana?"

"Pardon?"

"You wanted to apologise; I just figured…" You trail away the words and she shifts a little in her seat. She looks down, she looks up, she looks off to the side. She looks just a little uncomfortable.

"It was nothing, Brittany, really, I can assure you of that."

You smile. You nod.

"Cool. I accept your apology then."

You hold your fist out for her to bump, for no other reason than you are kind of messing with her a little here. You don't even necessarily mean to be toying, you just… It's easy to forget all of your earlier softening when she's being her same bad self right in front of you. And you've seen how that bad self works; you feel a little like you have her number, and you didn't even have to ask for it.

So you hold your fist out, just the same as you would to Sam.

And she looks at you.

"Like a high-five," you say, "but better."

She brings up her hand and you knock your knuckles against it. And again she looks at you, and she smiles. And you grin. And you take it all in. You're just about to say something else when Sam splits your periphery and slots into the space between yours and Quinn's chair;

"Whoa, we're initiating Quinn into our secret fist-bump club, why the honour?"

He asks and he laughs, and you poke him in the side.

Quinn also laughs, like a tinkle of a trace of a giggle, and she shakes her head as if to dismiss the moment; "Can you believe, in all my twenty-one years, I've never bumped a fist before?"

"No way?" says Sam.

"I'm being completely serious; Brittany's my first."

And Sam lifts his hand and fashions a fist and he bumps it against hers too;

"There, now you're official."

And you say _awesome._ And Quinn says _wonderful._

And all of the wheels are still turning.

…

When you drop Quinn back to the campaign office, you leave her with a smile. She thanks you and Sam both for another good day, and before she leaves, she leans across and makes a big deal about bumping fists again. And you go with it.

You're as happy as you can be after a day spent with Quinn; you've been through the confusing array of emotions befitting a situation where on the one hand you feel for her and all of her ordeals, yet, on the other hand… It's still Quinn, and you don't trust her, not for one moment. You feel like you have the upper hand though, and that's enough to let you play it all away as fun and frolics and a great day at work.

A great day that continues onwards.

A day that breaks for Santana.

Because you figure you have three minutes spare between using the bathroom and making your way up to Holly's office to convene with Mike and Tina and Sam, and to make more plans for merry mayhem. And sure, three minutes may not seem like a lot, but you _know_ the things that Santana is capable of doing with three minutes and you know she'll make the most of them.

And so you call, and you smile, and when she answers you light up like Christmas.

Just the way she says your name… It's a memory, and a moment, and;

"San…" you say, "…I miss you _so_ much."

Not sad, but insistent, and you hear her laughter down the line.

"_Already Britt? But it's only been like, 8 hours and 32 minutes and… 46 seconds. That's nothing, right?"_

Yet her words tell you everything, and you wrap wistful around your sigh. You ask her what she's doing, you tell her you only have a minute, or two, and her sigh is more soulful;

"_I'm not doing anything; I've just been thinking."_

"Ouch."

"_A little, maybe. You're still the upside though, Britt, and that's still a whole lot better than my downside."_

You bite your lip and you breathe in the sentiment, and you aim to smile her through your last lingering minute; "I'm the upside to your downside?" you ask, and she tells you _yeah_. And you say _wow_, you linger a moment longer before you tell her more;

"If that's not an invite to be the top to your bottom, then I really don't know what is…"

And you find her silence, and then she laughs. She really laughs.

"_God, Britt, I was being serious."_

"Oh, so was I Santana."

Because you were. Because you've spent so much time on your back beneath her - the best time of your life, without a shadow of any doubt - but still… Aside from the moment when she led you back inside her and you made time together, all of the minutes that stretched out after were minutes she spent taking you. A lot.

And a lot.

And you bite your lip again.

"I kind of want to be the top to your bottom," you say, and it strays close to a whisper and it plays close to a tease. "I think you'd really like it San."

And you have to do more than bite your lip at the sound she produces to answer your words. It's like a whine, but a moan, and a deep groan of wanting. And you want her _so_ much.

Yet your time is up.

Like a tease that can't be answered. Not right now, anyhow.

You fashion something like a moan of your own when you tell her you have to get going, and when she tells you she at least has some new material to think about now, you smile at all you've achieved in your three minute time frame. Goodbye is hard, and it takes three minutes more, yet you've added the pep back to your step and you march with a smile into Holly's office. You greet your colleagues and friends and you take a seat, and your lips lift higher as you all begin to converse.

It's fun because for once you're winning and it's you who gets to be all _yay_ in front of Tina and Mike. Not that you boss it about too much, you're not an ass, but you do give them a hearty thumbs up when Holly relays the latest figures from the online polls, and you fist bump them both when they offer their lacklustre congratulations.

"Friendly rivalry; now that's what I like to see!" Holly insists from her place across the desk, and you give her a thumbs up too. "Enough of the nicely, nicely though; the network's insisting it wants an injection of spice… Ideas people, what do we got?"

You all look at each other, eyes rolling, used to the way Holly shines her spotlight down searching out immediate results. Sam is first to speak, and you smile smug in Team Chang's direction; "Spice? How about a curry eating contest? We can see which candidate can really take the heat."

He hoists his palm for a high five, and you oblige him. "Genius," you insist as you make the slap, and he nods along to your wisdom.

Sadly Holly isn't sharing your glee.

"Hmm, not risqué enough guys… I'm thinking, wrestling ring, oil, bikinis…"

"I like your thinking," you say, because you really do, yet, "I don't think Quinn will be down for that though; her dad definitely won't approve it."

You shrug and Holly looks disappointed, but Mike enters in to pick up the slack with a useless idea of his own. You all sit there for ages bandying about suggestions, each one getting more and more ridiculous, until Holly bangs her hand down on the desk and calls you all back to order;

"Okay, guys, your enthusiasm is admirable, but nothing is getting done here. Let's say you go home and get them pointy little thinking caps on, and we meet back here in the morning? Does 8am suit everyone?"

Everyone groans, yet everyone agrees, and before you leave you make plans with Mike for dancing on Thursday, and you assure him that you'll be there this weekend to help more with the choreography for his uncle's Christmas concert. You hug Tina and agree that you all need to get together for dinner soon, and then your day is almost done.

You take a moment. Not a long one, just a breath between breaks while you wait for Sam to get his stuff together and you can head on home. A part of you regrets agreeing so easily to dinner tonight, because you are just beat and you would kinda like to go home and sink into the bath and hang with Lord T and speak more to Santana. You want to ask her about her day for real, you want to know what happened with her family and if she's okay. You did agree though, and Sam smiles so large when he greets you by the van, that you don't have the heart to break off your plans.

And it's nice being between him and Mercedes. It's like every comfort of home mixed in with every comfort of your best friends mixed in with love and laughter and everything nice. Even when Mercedes trains her eyes on you post eating, and you know exactly what's coming, you don't lose the warm glow that lights you from inside. You sit back in your chair, you bite your lip in preparation, and you raise your eyebrow.

"Don't give me that look," she says, "Sam's already filled me in on big details, I just want the little one; fess up, girl, what's going on?"

You blush a little, because you feel roughly close to junior high again, caught beneath both of their gazes; but they are gazes you trust and you do want to let some of the feeling out, and;

"She's so _awesome_ Mercedes, like, she's the most awesome girl I've ever met."

Your cheeks ache from how much you're smiling and she smiles straight back at you. Sam also smiles and he also speaks; "She is pretty awesome from what I've seen so far; she sure knows how to make our Britt smile, anyway, and that goes a whole long way towards marking me impressed."

For a moment they speak as if you're not there and now you feel as if you're sat in front of your parents on the couch and they're deciding upon your future; if the girl's good enough for you to date, if they give their seal of approval. It makes you laugh. It makes you throw a cushion at both of their heads as they carry on without you.

"Excuse me," you say, holding your beer aloft and demanding attention, "as the one who gets to see _all_ of Santana's awesome, don't you think I should be included in this discussion?"

Mercedes hushes you, and Sam throws the cushion back.

"If you've really seen all her awesome," Mercedes says, wagging a finger your way, "then I'm offended you haven't brought her by for dinner yet; since when do you get serious without asking advice?"

"When do I ever get serious?"

"Exactly! I'm offended."

Again you laugh and again you launch a missile in her direction. It does lead you down the way of serious conversation though. You do tell them a little more of the situation; you explain Santana's _family, _you tell them how when her mom died she got so super sad she forgot who she was for a really long while. When Mercedes asks if you're reminding her, you stop and you think and you smile for a while.

You wonder if that's what you're doing.

You wonder a moment at her. All of her.

And she's yours.

And… "Maybe? I just…"

You shrug your shoulders. She presses one of her hands to her heart and uses the other one to grab at Sam's hand and clasp them both together. "Can you believe it?" she asks, dramatising the obvious, "our little Britt has only gone and fallen in love."

And you flush, and you blush, and you shrug your shoulders.

…

You catch a cab back to yours, not too late and not too tipsy, and you sink into a bath and you spend time fussing on your cat, and you wait. You text Santana a few times while you were at Sam's and the last one you received back stated that she would call you just as soon as she was free.

You don't mind the wait; you have so many things fizzing through your mind that a moment to meander through them isn't a bad moment at all. You think through work things and you think briefly about Quinn, yet there's nothing in any of that which can distract your thoughts for too long from laying where they wish, and they wish to lay next to Santana.

Like, your bed is half empty now without her in it, and the space seems too big and your place feels too small. It makes you wrap your arms a little tighter around yourself as you snuggle inside of her favourite sweater and you bury your face in her pillow to search out her scent.

_Her _pillow.

Your pillow.

_Her _scent.

And, _god…_

You sigh. You finger the distance that wasn't there last night. And you miss her.

It's not even a sense of missing you can explain… You can't quite understand how strong it seems to hit you. Like, sure, before, you've missed things, and you've missed people… But, just… you _miss _her. Like you have no doubt that every single thing in your world would be perfect if only you could see her and hold her and touch her right now. Yet your phone rings and your fantasy fades and you sigh a _hello_ instead of smiling it.

And you say you miss her and it is now dejected. Because it's night time and it's bedtime, and you really, really just want to go to bed with her.

She says _Brittany_ and she sounds sad too.

Even as she tells you about her day, even as she insists it really wasn't that bad and she really isn't that fazed by what's ahead if it all stays as quiet as today has been, she still sounds sad.

She sighs and you sigh.

You ask her about her tomorrow.

"_Much of the same, I imagine. What about you, Britt?"_

"Less of the same. I have an early meet with Holly, I'm shooting with Quinn, then I hopefully have time for a get together with my Fondue crew in the afternoon. It's actually a pretty light day compared to this one."

"_It was long, huh?"_

"Too long."

She pauses and you know what she wants to ask. You'd want to ask the same in her position, and so you tell her without making her puzzle out her query.

"Quinn was okay," you say, and you hear her deep breath, "like, she tried to pin me down about what I saw in the alleyway, but she didn't really say much else. She seemed kinda…"

"_Kinda what?"_

"I don't know. It was odd; she's kinda odd."

You wait a moment and then you ask if she's heard from her, or if she's thought anymore about what to do. "…Whatever you decide," you say, "I've totally got your back."

And she says _right_.

She tells you that maybe she'll call Quinn tomorrow; _"…I'll just feel better," _she says, _"if I can keep an eye on what she's planning."_

It makes you think hard for a minute, it makes you remember another part of your day.

"Do you ever wonder…" you begin slowly, your mouth trying to piece together what your mind is insisting, "…If like, there's not some great big master plan?"

"_Like how?"_

"With Quinn; I don't know, I just… Sometimes I wonder if it really is all about Rachel."

"_Oh, it's all about Rachel, believe me, I lived through every act. It's an obsession, not at all healthy… especially when you consider it's all over Finn."_

And you wonder;

If maybe Santana isn't too close to the middle to catch a glance from the outside. Because her thread is all twisted up in the story and she can't yank one way without yanking herself the other; yet you. Maybe you can see the threads a little clearer; maybe you can yank and see what unravels.

You _hmmm_ your agreement at all of her insistence, and you leave all the talk of work far behind. You tell Santana that as much as you love your job, you love other stuff a whole lot more, and you want to talk now about other stuff.

"_Other stuff, huh? Is that a euphemism for something wanky?"_

"That all depends on what a euphemism is; if it's a reference to how hard you fucked me this morning, then I guess it's kind of wanky."

It rolls off your tongue as easy as you rolled off of hers, and you don't miss the intake of breath from her end. You don't miss the opportunity to make her breathe harder;

"I can still feel all the places you touched me," you tell her quiet, "like I'm actually still throbbing… I think I'm still really wet…"

"…_You think?"_

"You want me to check?"

You imagine the expression on her face and you know you're still wet, and the throb that you feel hasn't eased once all day. It's a frustration that won't be cured from talking it through, and when she whispers a harshly breathed _Britt_, you sigh into the empty spaces of your bedroom.

You say nothing and neither does she.

You just ache.

And she speaks it before you do;

"_This isn't going to work."_

"It isn't," you agree.

You roll onto your back and you look up at the ceiling, and if you believed it was that simple, you'd pray for a solution. As it is, you think, in circles and triangles and all other shapes that lead you back to the same spot.

"_Ask me again,"_ she says, and you're so far inside of your mind-mapped geometry that you forget what you asked her in the first place. You say _huh?_

"_Ask me what I'm doing tomorrow."_

"Oh… okay, crazy girl; what are you doing tomorrow?"

You smile around _crazy girl_ because you just love her crazy.

And you smile because you know. Because you _know_ where her thoughts lead, and when she speaks she confirms it.

"_Well, Brittany S Pierce, hotshot TV superstar, if you're free tomorrow evening, I thought, I don't know… Maybe I can bust out of this asylum and we could make some awesome friend time together?"_

"You're getting really good at this making time, Santana."

"_Maybe I've found something worth making time for."_

"Something?"

"_Someone."_

"They must be someone kind of cool, if you're going to all this effort."

"_They're very deserving."_

"Yeah? That's awesome, I'm really happy for you, San."

She laughs and she sounds really happy too. Beyond the ache and beyond even the other stuff, she just sounds really happy. _"Thanks Britt, it means a lot to know I've got you behind me."_

"I'm sure we agreed on top."

"_You agreed; I didn't agree to anything."_

"Once I'm on top, you'll agree to everything."

"_How do you know you're gonna make it there, Britt?"_

And you laugh, really happy, and you tell her how it is;

"Assignment Eleven, Santana; how to be a gracious bottom… I think you're ready to get to grips with it."

Because you do, you think, and she doesn't disagree.

And you tease her more, and you ease each other, and you count really hard on that time called tomorrow.

…


	18. Falling Fast

A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! And, Happy Birthday to Gleeky_girl714... I hope you've had an awesome one.

...

...

You and Sam arrive early for your meeting with Holly this morning, and though you brainstormed in the van all the way here, neither of you have come up with anything that you think is going to make Holly particularly excited. You can't help it; your brain is eager to get in the game and come up with a winning idea, yet your mind is stuck still on the actual logistics of stoking that Quinn versus Rachel rivalry. You really do just want a quiet life. You really do just want to rock the vote without needlessly rocking the boat, until that time it's all over and Quinn can go back to Yale, and you can go back to Fondue for Two, and Santana…

You smile.

Because you don't know yet what Santana's plans will be once she decides to forge her future, but you know, whatever they are, you're going to be right by her side and working them with her. You can't wait; you really can't, and it's that which douses your excitement for big bangs and fireworks. Sure, it'd be great for the production overall, but calm seas and cloud free skies are all that you wish for.

It makes you shrug across at Holly a whole lot more than usual, and you're glad when she sighs away the topic, and talks through your morning's guest slot instead. You fill her in on Quinn's track listing choices and you agree when she widens her eyes surprised and tells you that they're not at all what she would've imagined;

"I thought we'd be getting nothing but _Christian Classics_; are you sure you didn't pick this list, Britt?"

You shake your head. You look down at the listings again.

"She already had them mostly planned out," you say, referencing the way she'd pulled a play list up on her phone yesterday and fired off her choices to the producer; "I guess she just has really electric taste, or something."

You shrug again and Holly smiles wide; "I think you mean eclectic, but it could be electric too. Has her father pre-approved the message?"

You again study the listing and you try and decide what message Holly is seeing. "You think he won't like girl's running the world?"

"That too. Though, American Idiot isn't exactly a Republican call to arms, either. Interesting," she says, and her eyebrows dip down in contemplation.

"I think she's just really good at playing the crowd," Sam offers from the seat at your side, and you nod your agreement. "I've never met anyone as awesome at charming an audience; except maybe Britt…"He smiles at you goofy, and you roll your eyes away from his words. "…I bet she just chose songs she knew would appeal to the viewers. The girl wants to win; she's not stupid."

Aside from your eye roll, you listen carefully to Sam's summing up of Quinn. You haven't spoken extensively to him about her, neither of you have really gotten into what you think of her beyond the day to day obvious, and his words interest you. He has a different view of Quinn to the one you get to see; he studies her from the quiet side of the camera. He frames her in ways you don't get to witness. Yet, you figure you've measured her the same. You hear your own thoughts echoed in Sam's words.

It has you nodding again in agreement, and when Holly tells you to enjoy the filming and have fun with it, you assure her that that's your plan. You know to ham the friendship up hard for the camera. You know how to charm your audience.

You're just settling back into your chair and planning strategies in your head when the bustle behind you lets you know that Mike and Tina have finally arrived for the meeting. They're running a little late, which is really strange for them, and you turn your head to joke away their tardiness with a tease about professionalism and the will to win.

The joke dies in your throat.

You weren't expecting to see Rachel Berry by their side. It causes more than a pause as your features freeze into one of surprise and confusion. You barely register the apology plastered across Tina's face because already Rachel is speaking, and already your ears are ringing from her high pitched tone of greeting.

She directs it at Holly. Kind of loudly for this time of the morning;

"Holly Holliday! I come bearing gifts of early morning muffins!"

She does. In her arms she carries a large pink box, with the name of a local bakery logo'd across the side. She leans between you and Sam to place it on the desk, and then she takes her footsteps around until she's by Holly's side and she lowers herself to offer the typical LA air kiss to the cheek. "Sorry to barge in unannounced," she says, still louder than necessary, "but Mike and Tina told me what you're planning and I'm here to offer my services. Or my ideas. Possibly my concerns."

"Hello, Rachel," Holly offers with a smile, "you know you're always welcome here. How are Hiram and Leroy?"

"Delightful, and busy, and they both send their greetings. They also share my concerns."

Her voice drops a little on the last and she turns now to face you. She smiles that really large Rachel smile, and she leans across the desk to offer you her hand; "Brittany, how have you been?"

You're stumped. You say _okay._

"Wonderful," she says, and she takes in a deep breath and clasps her hands together in front of her chest, as if about to launch into a well rehearsed speech. "As you all know," she begins, flitting her eyes across you one by one, "I take this election campaign very seriously, and while I'm extremely grateful for this opportunity to engage the audience and promote my father's fantastic plans for his next term in office, I'm a little concerned at the…" she pauses, she looks at you and then at Holly, she shakes her head, "…Well, the _Aryan_ bias," she says, and you wonder what the heck.

Holly laughs. Really loudly.

"This isn't a laughing matter," Rachel continues, "I follow the online polling very closely, and I'm aware that Quinn is currently pegging back my earlier lead,"

"She's actually winning," you cut in, and when she looks at you, you smile.

"Yes, Brittany, that's what I meant. And that's my concern. Why is the all-American blonde beauty, paired with two more all-American blonde beauties, being given such obvious preference over myself and my team?"

"Aren't you American?" you ask, genuinely confused.

"_Yes_, but I'm from a minority group Brittany, and so are Mike and Tina, and I think the message you're promoting with all of this extra exposure for Quinn, is one of both inequality and blatant favouritism."

Holly reaches out and snags a muffin and takes a real large bite.

Mike coughs.

You glance across at him and his shaking his head. He performs the international sign for crazy, twirling his finger up by his head, and you nod lightly to concur. No one speaks again until Holly has finished chewing on her mouthful, and you're sure it's because no one really knows what to say.

"Okay," Holly eventually offers, nudging the box of muffins towards you and Sam, "say for a minute I take you seriously, which is actually quite hard to do this early in the day; how would you have us address this bias I have towards my blonde beauties?"

"That's easy," says Rachel, "I want equal exposure on the channel."

You guess that sounds fair.

She hasn't finished.

"Also," she carries on, smiling down at you before glancing back at Holly, "I'm aware that there's a special Fondue for Two being filmed for Rock the Vote…"

You don't smile.

"…And I want in."

You say _no_ like a knee-jerk reaction. Everyone looks to you;

"We've already got the show planned out; we shoot on Monday, so…"

Holly waves away your words and her eyes are still on Rachel and she's tilted her head to the left which is the direction you know she tilts to when she sinks her teeth into an idea, and;

"This is workable," she says, "I can easily shift the schedule around for shooting, Britt; you can take an extra week to get things in place. We can kill two birds with one stone."

"Kill?" you query, your shoulders slumping some.

"How would you feel Rachel, about appearing alongside Quinn?" Holly asks, ignoring your dejected pose. "We can have Lord T chair a discussion on the importance of voting from both parties perspectives."

"Oh, that's excellent! It'll be like an early run through for our final debate."

"But…" you say, and no one listens.

"That's settled then!" Holly says, bringing her hands together in a gusto given clap.

She tells you next that with the new plan in place, the need for meeting this morning has been negated and you're all free to go. She thanks Rachel for the muffins, she tells her to drop by anytime with her queries and concerns and her high quality baked goods, and then she ushers you all from her office with a high pitched smile and a final shout out to you to give her a call later.

You nod. You don't smile.

You're more than a little pissed.

You leave the others behind you and you make your way down the hall to the ladies restrooms. You just need a minute to think of all the ways you shouldn't kill Rachel Berry. It's not even that it's not a good idea; the idea of the Rock the Vote season of shows _is_ to get the overall message of the importance of voting out there, and your show is the most popular show on the network. Your influence does seem to have some effect on the viewing public. You know that they would love to see Lord Tubbington situated between Quinn and Rachel and chairing a mock debate. But still…

Fondue for Two is yours.

You feel a little like someone picked up your baby without asking and your body is flush with a maternal need to kick ass. Just a bit. Just a little. And so you've come to the bathroom to splash your face with a some cool water and claim back your composure.

You breathe deep. You slow count to ten enough times that you begin to count hundreds, and you remind yourself to think professionally; to focus on the plus points, to be proud of the exposure and the success of your show.

You're doing okay. You're just about there.

Yet, like some cosmic joke, like some weird irony that you know you have to remark upon, Rachel walks through the door and into your eye line, and you know it's you that she's come searching for.

You don't let her speak.

You make your remark;

"Maybe cruising girls in bathrooms is more your thing than Santana's; it's really getting kind of creepy."

She has the good grace to drop her eyes, to at least pretend at a look of apology as she steps forwards towards you; "I just wanted to discuss further our plans to get our cats together and-"

"Stop," you say, you even hold your hand up to impress how much you mean it. "What do you really want, Rachel?"

Because as much as you find the idea cute of sourcing a lady friend for Lord Tubbington, you're sure that Rachel doesn't keep chasing you down for that reason alone. There's more to this, you know it, and you're in no mood to play with her.

She takes another step towards you and she raises her hands, palms up in front of her, before she speaks; "What would you have me do, Brittany?" she questions, and you dip your eyebrows down in reply. You're not at all sure what she's even asking and you wait silently for her to carry on. "I honestly apologise for ram raiding your show, and I admit that playing the race card is something that someone in my position should, quite frankly, be above; but have you seen the statistics?"

Now you raise your eyebrow. Of course you have.

"On a personal level, I don't care that Quinn's having her moment in the spotlight; I've learned in New York that among many stars, my shine never dims. But politically, Brittany, are you even aware of the agenda you're promoting unchecked?"

"I'm about to shoot a top ten show this morning, with Quinn's favourite election season songs… Unless you think we're promoting a secret _musical_ agenda, I don't think I really get what you're suggesting."

You shrug your shoulder. You still don't smile at her.

She smiles at you. She shakes her head; "I think we both know you're not as oblivious as you make out to be. Quinn's father's policies are dangerous and if you offer them up on your show without any kind of right to reply, well, that's really the same as supporting them; don't you think?"

Maybe. Maybe not.

You actually had no intention of even touching on Quinn's father's policies on your show. You're not oblivious to anything; you want to win and you know there's a thousand other things you can successfully promote about Quinn, without ever straying into the murky waters of right wing republican policy making. You don't say that though. You breathe deeply again and you stretch the tension from your shoulders. You think about your job; you think about Holly.

"It's okay, Rachel," you speak through teeth still lightly gritted together. "I'm sure it's going to be great having you and Quinn on the show together. Though, next time, maybe you could actually ask before you go above my head to arrange things on _my_ show. You know, just as a common courtesy…"

She drops her eyes once more and you roll yours away from her.

She speaks again;

"I am sorry, I truly am, but I really do think it'll benefit the process Brittany, and equal exposure is so important in this day and age. Honestly, how would you feel if just one person switched their vote to Russell Fabray, because they believe that you and Lord Tubbington were in favour of his candidacy?"

You seriously doubt that will happen. You're sure that your support is helping Quinn, but even she said that her father doesn't stand a chance against Rachel's father. You chew the thought forward onto your lips, and you launch it out there with ease;

"Even Quinn says he's not likely to win; I really don't think you need to worry, Rachel. You sure didn't need to hijack my show."

"Pardon me?"

"Well, you didn't. I said you could come on after the election; I just think it's rude."

She's looking at you, really looking, and if you weren't already leant back against the sinks, you'd pull yourself away from the depth of her enquiry.

You ask _what_, because her intensity is making you a little uncomfortable.

She steps forward once more. Just one step, slowly… almost as if she takes it without thinking. "No, what did you say about Quinn?" she asks, her voice worded on a whisper.

"Uh, I don't know? She said her dad's probably going to lose. That's a good thing, right?"

Your own voice drops because your space is getting smaller and you're not sure now if you've said something wrong. It's not like Quinn said it as a secret, she said it as common sense. She sold it as the writing on the wall. Rachel is still peering close at you though, and you shift from one foot to the other.

"Why would she say that? That's…"

"She said she's top of all her classes and not a fool, so…"

You shrug your shoulder now. You wait around her pause.

She says _Well.._. She says words about how she doesn't quite believe it; "I was sure that even the Ivy League couldn't endow Quinn with enough sense to sight her father's chances clearly. That's…"

She trails off again, and you trail off with her. You feel like, you don't know… Like that thread is pulling, that one which ties together strands of stories you're barely aware of, and you want Rachel to continue. You want her to speak thoughts which sound similar to the mist which swirls around the thoughts precariously placed in the back of your mind. Because…

Something.

She finally settles on the word _different_. You settle your eyes on her, and now you look.

And she doesn't look away.

And it's like you're both waiting on the other person to say something, and you expect that what they say is going to be weighty and packed with meaning, yet neither of you speaks. You hold the silent stare for as long as you can. You can't hold your tongue any longer;

"Do you think she's capable of changing?" You ask, and you're not sure where the query came from. It's nowhere close to all the pertinent questions about tied together histories that you want to bombard her with, yet it doesn't seem to catch her off guard and there's no surprise in her eyes, even as she asks what you mean.

You shrug around your uncertainty. She sighs before she finds more words.

"I'm one of those who believes that Quinn Fabray is capable of anything she puts her mind to, and I mean that sincerely, both the good and the bad. Do I expect, though, that she'll ever want to change?"

She purses her lips tight together and creases her brow through her long consideration.

"I imagine Brittany, that if she could envision a way for it to benefit her, then yes, she's capable of changing her ways; at least acting as if she's changed." She pauses, she peers closer, "What makes you ask?"

You pause.

She peers closer still.

"Is this to do with Santana?"

Yes. No.

Yes.

You don't say anything. You're not even sure what you can or can't say… You're not sure. Of Rachel or of Quinn, or of where the threads intersect and Santana will be safest.

You bite your lip and you watch Rachel as she studies your indecision. And again she offers you that smile of hers which stinks somewhat of pity, yet…

Maybe her face is just shaped wrong, and it's meant to be simple concern that coats her features, because when her words come, they're not condescending at all; "I bet when MTV gave you this assignment, you weren't expecting quite so much emotional turmoil," she says, and she reaches out to place a gentle hand on your arm. A hand that you weren't expecting.

A touch that pushes at a feeling, that makes you swallow a sound so close to a sigh.

"It's okay," you assure her, keen to change away from her chosen subject. "The assignment's really cool, and… Yeah. It's all been really fun."

"Right. And you'd make a terrible politician." She laughs, a little, kind of. She steps back from you and she sizes you up against the sinks, and she takes a breath before launching herself into another round of words; "I think I'd like to invite you out to lunch," she says, and when you go to answer an easy excuse, it's her who holds her hand up to stop you this time; "Just hear me out, Brittany. I understand that this is all rather unconventional; I appreciate that you're representing Quinn in this contest, and I know that consorting with the enemy is generally frowned upon, but, I don't know, I get the sense that you and I aren't _really_ destined to be enemies. I honestly do believe that we could benefit each other here."

You keep your face blank and your emotions buried. You don't answer her easily.

"I'm not sure, Rachel, I…"

"Look, how about I give you my number, and then, if you choose to use it, that's excellent, and if you don't; well, I won't take any offence, and I'll see you at the taping for your show."

She smiles at you, a large and inviting smile that only confuses you further.

And you say _okay_, and you dig your phone from out of your pocket and you hold it out for her to take.

…

Your mind probably isn't in the best place to spend time with Quinn after your unexpected and somewhat confusing get together with Rachel in the restrooms, yet the choice isn't yours to make, and you return to your office to gather yourself together before you make your way to your studio appointment. Your phone is in your hand. You're sat at your desk, staring at your empty screen, and as much as you want to send a text to Santana, your fingers won't work properly. The weight of your phone feels different, as if the fact that it now contains Rachel's number is somehow altering your equilibrium, and your hands are heavy, or your heart is heavy, and you just… You just want to see the bigger picture for a moment. You want to speed through the scenes upcoming and assure yourself that the ending you desire is the ending that's on offer.

You just want Santana.

And sometimes, in moments which maraud through your mind unchecked, you're terrified that all of the uncertainty that surrounds her is going to seep through to the certainty that you're otherwise sure of. Like, you're on a tightrope, and you know, you're _sure_ that if you just keep the faith and place one foot in front of the other, you'll be fine… But still, you're walking a tightrope. And there's Rachel and there's Quinn and there's a million missteps just waiting to slide you aside, and…

You breathe deep. You focus on what you know.

You open up your phone's inbox and you go back to that first message, that insignificantly significant _I like your hat_, to _I really like your hat, _to that time when she was craving hotdogs at the beach. And you remember her hand in yours and you remember the way she wrapped the comfort of her sweater around you to keep you warm, and… Her kiss.

God, her kiss. All of her kisses. And the wishes wrapped tight inside them and the wants flowing through them and how all of her wishes and wants are for you. And your tightrope touches the ground or your feet float above the rope, and it's really not so hard, you think, to make your fingers work the right way if you just focus on what actually matters to you.

The words you type say you can't wait to see her.

The words she returns tell you the same, and they ask you to call her when you have the time.

And you smile. And your fingers confirm that as soon as you can, you will. And you smile.

Like bookends to contain your uncertainty.

Even as you deliver yourself to the studio for the morning's filming, even as you compartmentalize your thoughts into boxes marked separate for both business and pleasure, you can't stop the easy lift that tugs at your lips nor the spring in your step that already counts down the hours. Because really, if you think about it logically, each of the steps that you take through this day are just steps that you're taking on the journey towards her.

It doesn't even faze you that Quinn is running late.

It gives you the time to smile sincere before you have to think about faking it, and when she finally ushers herself into the makeup chair at your side, you think you're ready to face whatever the day delivers to you, and you meet her eyes in the mirror.

She apologises, or she utters something else entirely unintelligible, and then she turns her attention to her phone. You watch her as she types furiously fast into her keypad, you count the dips in her brow and the frowns that pass across her forehead, and you ask, because you're interested, "Is everything okay?"

She neither pauses in her pursuits nor takes note that you've spoken to her, and it's only when the girl who's been teasing the blusher onto your cheeks turns her attention Quinn's way, that she finds a break from her distraction. She looks up at her reflection, her eyes slide across to you and;

"I'm sorry, Brittany, did you say something?"

She's still distracted.

You ask again if everything is okay, yet she's batting a hand out at the makeup artist and typing again into her phone. "Fine," she says, not catching your eye, "everything's just great."

You wait.

You watch.

When she tosses her phone onto the shelf in front of her, knocking over whatever lotions and potions stand in her way, you're sure you're seeing yet another side to her so many sides, and you study the shape of her face. You watch mascara being applied to her agitated eyes, you watch gloss being glazed across her stretched tight lips, and you see the sigh as the blush is brushed across her cheeks to add a touch of colour.

When she's done she doesn't move, and neither do you.

The floor manager passes through and tells you twenty minutes until you're on set, and you smile and you say _sure_ and then you look again to the mirror. She's raised her eyes and she's studying herself, and for want of anything else to break the too quiet silence with, you ask her how last night went; you ask if it went better than expected.

Her eyes flick across to you, her eyebrow lifts up, "Not particularly," she tells you, her mouth still set tight, "I always find that preaching works best when delivered from the pulpit; listening to my mother espouse the evils which threaten her ideals of the perfect American family is both bone wearingly boring and, well…"

She stops. She shifts in her seat and she rolls her eyes.

Her phone rings.

Or it does the continued vibration thing that phones do when they're set to silent and someone is calling. It draws her gaze back to the shelf in front of her, and when she pauses, you say you don't mind if she takes it. You shrug your shoulders, yet she doesn't answer. She leans forward to retrieve the phone, but she lets it ring off and once the vibration stops, she again goes back to typing fast fingered messages into the keypad. And really, you don't care, you don't, you're still floating above that rope and not looking down, but curiosity and your inquisitive mind keep dragging your eyes back her way.

Like you're distracted by her distraction, like,

"Ten minutes!" you hear, hollered out in your direction, and it lifts both your eyes.

Or hers, because you were already watching.

You repeat the _ten minutes_ in case she didn't catch the words, and again she looks down at her phone. Like an obsession. And not one which is making her smile.

…

The shoot is long and laborious, and even though Quinn's selection of election day songs are all upbeat and high energy, for the first time ever, you can tell that your chemistry isn't engineering itself into anything resembling the mythical _Brittany Effect. _Your job is simple; you sit alongside Quinn on a large sofa, and you ask her about each song and why she chose it, and then she introduces it into the camera. The format is perfect for the two of you to joke about and laugh it up, and generally have fun with the music, yet she still holds herself tight. Her smile, even though you're sure it's one she's practised a thousand times in front of a thousand mirrors, doesn't once set light to her eyes, and you know you're kind of bombing. A bit. At least enough for the director to call cut more than once to have you do a segment over, and to encourage you heartily to _get into it some more_.

"You're meant to be enthusing the audience," he says, "not sending the cameraman to sleep."

And you smile, and you offer him a big thumbs up, and it _sucks_.

If there's one thing you're good at, fantastic at even, then that's your job and doing what you do and being Brittany S Pierce, and with each do over intro that you have to re-shoot, your irritation levels steadily increase. You eventually ask for a minute, for a break to use the restroom or a moment to refresh, and you take Quinn by the arm and you lead her to a quiet corner, and you lay it all out on the line; you ask her what her problem is, and when her eyes narrow and she sets herself in a defensive stance with her arms crossed tight, you mirror her movements.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she assures you, "and if anyone has a problem, I'd suggest it's the man with the extremely loud voice who insists on calling _cut _at every god forsaken opportunity. Honestly, Brittany, I've-"

"Bullshit."

You call it. You cut her off, you widen her eyes, and you call it.

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry, just; it sounded like you were blaming the director for all the things you're doing wrong, so…" You lift your shoulder a little to offer a small shrug, "…I don't know, whatever the issue is, maybe you should deal with it so we can actually try and get some work done today?"

And she looks at you. Not kindly.

Her eyes narrow in again and she tilts her head in consideration before she answers;

"You honestly have no idea, do you?"

"About what?"

And her gaze drops down, and her gaze lifts up, "I get that this is all _awesome_ and fun for you Brittany, really, but I have a lot more riding on this than stupid song selections, spoon-fed slowly to an audience of morons."

You bite your lip, yet not too hard, and not for long. "I don't really have anything riding on this," you tell her, your tone matter of fact, "none of us do, really, we're only here trying to make you look good, so anytime you want to-"

"What, quit?" She laughs her brittle laugh without once smiling, "Oh no, I have every intention of seeing this through to the end, you don't need to worry about that."

"I wasn't worrying about that; I was actually _going_ to say that anytime you wanted to, I don't know, loosen up a little, then you could. Like, it'd be a good thing if you could at least try and make the effort."

She laughs again.

"_Loosen up_?" she asks, echoing your instruction, and you nod to affirm. "That's priceless, truly, and how would you suggest I do that?"

She tilts her head again, and though she's still peering intently at you, her gaze is losing it's narrowed edge and you uncross your arms. You tuck a stray strand of hair back behind your ear and you think for a moment; because this is somehow like ballet dancing through a minefield, and as much as you're on point, as much as you're placing your words with as much precision as you would normally place your feet, you're still cautious.

This is still Quinn.

"Like, yesterday," you say, "on the news show, or last week on FashionistarZ… Can't you just…"

And still she looks, and so you say more;

"…Be _nice_. And fun, and you're way prettier when you smile on camera, so…"

"Do you know how far you get being nice, Brittany? This isn't some backwards town in middle-America; they eat _nice_ for breakfast here."

"I'm nice," you say, "and I'm doing okay."

Again she laughs, yet it's less like indignation and pitched closer to a tone of exasperation, as if you're explaining to her that your sun rises in the west instead of the east, regardless of all of the things she might call facts. She shakes her head slowly from side to side and she loosens the hold of her arms across her chest. "You might actually have me there," she admits quietly, her gaze dropping for a moment to map out the pattern on the ground. "We're not all Brittany S Pierce though, are we, and I can assure you that you're an exception to the rule…"

When she meets your gaze again her eyes have adopted curiosity, and calculations, and when her brow dips down to crease her forehead, you imagine she's trying to measure you in much the same way you're trying to measure her. "…You really are something of an anomaly," she says, and you ask;

"Is that good or bad?"

"I guess that's the big question, isn't it?"

When her eyebrow raises, you shrug your shoulders.

You wonder at the same question in reverse.

You don't say that though, you don't show her any of your own cards, you just smile, a small smile, a tiny lift to the right side of your lips; "I think I'm pretty good," you say, your tone no more than tenth grade simple, "it comes as a side-dish to being so nice."

And her expression slips close to passive and she rolls her eyes to the sky, "If you're about to recite childhood rhymes about sugar and spice and-"

"Chemical X."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking about the Power Puff Girls. My bad."

And now she really shakes her head.

And you nod serious; "They were totally my role models growing up."

"A part of me actually believes you."

"The part that's loosening up, right?"

You wiggle your eyebrows and you smile your most winning smile, and she lifts her lips, just a touch, and for now, you think, as you hold up your fist for her to bump, your measures are much closer to the mark than hers are.

…

It means that you're smiling by the time you make it through the whole of the taping, because even though Quinn didn't quite manage to shake off all of her shackles and entice the camera with as much gusto as on previous occasions, she did loosen up a lot, and the director stopped shouting so much, and your irritation level dropped some, and…

You made it through.

So you're smiling, sitting back in the make-up chair, next to a still phone obsessed Quinn, and having the gunk that was applied to your face for filming, unapplied. In your mind you're about thirty minutes away from finally calling Santana, and that keeps your attention off of the mirror and off of Quinn. Like that burden is behind you for the day, and now you just want to relax inside of your comfort zone. You want Santana's arms around you and you want your world to be shaped from sugar and spice and every single nicety that she slides inside of her kiss.

And you bite your lip on the thought of her kiss.

You sink into that feeling that mimics infinity.

And when the curse comes harsh from your side, it shocks you all out of your reverie. Your eyes flick up to find her reflection, and you wonder who the _fucking imbecile_ is. You wonder it out loud when she curses further;

"My father's idiot of an assistant," she spits, her frown more furious than you've seen at any other time today. "Her incompetence is off the fucking charts ridiculous…" she stops to type yet even faster flung messages into her phone, and you tilt your head to observe her.

"Is that the woman from Fairfield? At breakfast and stuff?"

"And stuff," she agrees, twisting her lips, "because it sure as hell isn't her organisational skills that keep her in the job."

You ask what the problem is. You venture it softly; you tiptoe through the minefield.

She still pauses before she answers. She waves away the woman encroaching on her space with a make-up wipe, and she takes in a large breath before releasing the air slowly through her lips. She purses them, she… _pouts_?

"I need to go back to New Haven," she says, and you raise your brow.

"Like Yale? You want to go back to school?"

"Yes Yale, and something like that. I have business that needs attending to this weekend; I informed my father's assistant weeks ago, and now she's insisting I have a _speaking_ engagement with my father in Santa Barbara."

"Bummer," you say. "Can't you just, like, put your foot down? If it's school stuff it's kind of important, right?"

She takes in another deep breath and she snarls a look down at the phone in her hands; "It's incredibly important. It's four years of hard work, and this _woman…_"

You watch her face tighten in frustration, and against your better judgement, you do feel for her. You can't not feel for her. You remember Santana's words from the alleyway that judged Quinn as nothing more than her father's puppet, and you'll never forget the strings that you know her father's pulled on…

"If I was you," you tell her reflection, "I'd do what made me happy."

She shoots you an irritated look, and you lift your shoulder; "You're doing all of this for your dad, Quinn, like, since I've known you, you haven't had a day off to just chill. Go back to school… Just, go. What's the worst he can do?"

Because you're sure he's already done it.

And she looks down at her phone. She looks at you;

"I have every intention of going, Brittany," she insists, her scowl still evident in the set of her eyes, "it'll just be a lot easier for now if I can operate without the drama of disappointed parents."

You say _sure._ You smile encouragement.

Yet you still can't really fathom why she gives a fuck about her parents.

…

By the time you're back in your office and you're seated at your desk and your head is in your arms and you're thinking everything through and…

You're frazzled. A bit.

Or your edges all feel a bit fuzzy, and you want to take in a breath bigger than one you can carry. Like, everyone thinks it's all fun and awesome being Brittany S Pierce, and it is, beyond awesome most of the time, but… Your head is holding a riot inside, and your thoughts are frantic for placement, and you're just… You're tired. A bit.

And you're craving a bath. And a bed. And Santana.

You didn't get a chance after all to speak on the phone. The day took a lot longer than it would've taken had Quinn not been so entirely distracted, and by the time you were done, you had an array of text messages waiting in your inbox, and a suggestion that you let her know when you're free and she'll just come and collect you.

And you want her to collect you; you want her to take all of your frazzled pieces and put them back together, and you want her to kiss you better. The kind of better you believe in whenever you're with her.

It's a whole lot. It's a contemplation you're happy to lose yourself in as you make your way down to the parking area at the time you told her to come. Because throughout all of this, from all the way back in the very beginning, just the sight of her has added something extra to your day. And like, if this was an equation, and Quinn was the variable that you can't seem to balance, then Santana is like your X = everything. Like that secret chemical which engineers all of your thoughts away from the bad and off to somewhere good.

Somewhere spicy with a sweet taste of sugar and a niceness that comes from just…

_Her._

And you pause as you walk across the car park. You smile as if you never stop smiling.

And already you feel better.

She's just… Like, she really just is the best thing you've ever seen.

She's leaning up against the passenger side door of her car, she's dressed down casual in tight white jeans and a dark blue t-shirt, her hair is swept all over her right shoulder in a loose tied ponytail, and she's sporting a pair of aviators, and…

"Hey," you say, because your feet have delivered you into the space in front of her, even though you're sure you're still paused, and she's smiling, and her cheeks are scrunching, and,

"Hey," she replies, and you want to pull her into your hold, you want to lose yourself already to the comfort you crave, yet she's stepping aside and opening the door, and when she ushers you with her hand, you take a seat inside.

When she's by your side you stare at her.

You see your own smile in the reflection of her sunglasses, and you miss the sight of her eyes. You're about to tell her, you're about to pout and ask her to remove them, but her mouth moves first and she asks instead; "Top down or up?"

And you look at her t-shirt.

You consider the possibilities.

"I'm talking about the car, Britt," she says, laughing lightly when you raise your eye-line back up.

"Oh, right. The _car_. Me too, totally."

"So..?"

"I don't mind; I live like, just down the road. Does it matter?"

And she looks at you.

"We're not going to yours," she informs you.

"We're not?"

"Nope. I'm taking you out for dinner."

"You are?"

"Sure I am. It turns out I suck at making plans, but I kick ass at making reservations. Top up or down?"

And you smile, kind of curious, an intrigued kind of happy, and you tell her down.

And you sit by her side with the wind in your hair, and you wonder at where she's taking you.

…

She takes you by the hand.

Across the centre console of the car, she slips her fingers into yours, and she drives with only one hand holding the wheel. Even when she has to break at an intersection, or pause for the flow of traffic, her hand leaves yours for only a moment before she claims it back again.

It's cute.

The first time she did it, you told her you thought so, the second time you just smiled and relaxed into the feeling; because it's not a bath, and it's not your bed, but it's still Santana, and the simple feel of her hand in yours as you drive north alongside the ocean, is something pretty special. When you ask her where she's taking you, she just tells you to wait and see, and so you do. You sit patiently through the long straight drive up the Pacific Coast Highway with your feet tapping to the beats from the radio, and you take silent note as you pass the signs for Oxnard. You sight the ocean again when she pulls onto South Harbor Boulevard, and when she eventually cuts the engine in the car park to a restaurant called Sea Fresh, you guess you've reached your destination.

"This is a long way to come for seafood," you observe, cocking your head to the side, but she smiles the same smile she's been flashing you since she picked you up from work, and she tells you she likes it here;

"Plus, it's real pretty out on the patio, and it's far enough away from the city to feel like freedom."

"I like freedom," you tell her.

"I like you."

And you stare once again at your reflection in her sunglasses, and once again you more than anything miss the sight of her eyes on yours. "The sun's going down now, San," you say, gesturing your free hand towards the window, "I think you're probably safe to lose the glasses."

"You don't like my glasses?"

"I love your glasses, they're really cool, but I kinda like your eyes more."

You lose her hand in yours because she frees herself from your hold to rid her face of her sunglasses, yet you happily take the trade, because you get to see the light in her eyes set off by the mascara on her lashes, and you get to see it super close up when she leans across to plant a small and soft kiss to your lips.

"I really missed you, Brittany," she says, and you smile, and you kiss her again, and you tell her _me too. _You tell her;

"I slept kind of sad last night."

"Sad?"

"Sure, 'cause my bed smells like a Santana scented sex-den, and that's awesome, but it made me feel kind of lonely, so…"

"You slept sad."

You nod your head and she pouts for a second before pausing to find more words;

"A sex-den, huh?"

"Well, yeah; we did have a _lot_ of sex, Santana."

And her eyes shade dark, and her teeth grip her lip, and you lean forward to taste them with another kiss. A longer kiss; a kiss that reminds you with a full dose of desire just why you had so much sex. And you whimper disapproval when she pulls away, or you sigh and you say;

"More, please?"

"Food first," she says laughing.

"And then more?"

"And then more."

You nod your acceptance, and when she tells you to wait there, you sit with the largest smile ever plastered across your face as she walks around the car to get the door for you again. Because you're thinking across thoughts which sound like _fate _and _mate_, only more like…

"Is this a _date_?" you ask, your tone hitting high as you stand at her side.

She just grins back at you. She ushers you inside of the restaurant, she pulls your chair out when you're led over to your table on the patio, and she directs your gaze out towards the ocean; "See Britt, I told you it was pretty."

It really is. Not pretty like Santana, but certainly pretty enough for you to appreciate, and definitely pretty enough for you to nod your head with agreement. You still tell her though; "I think you're prettier."

"I think you're crazy."

"I think I'm crazy for you."

She shakes her head, she lifts her eyes up and to the side and she whines out _Britt_ in a way that says she actually likes all that you're saying.

You nudge her leg with your foot under the table. You wiggle your eyebrows at her.

"I'm actually completely crazy for you," you say.

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely."

And she smiles at you, not humungous, not the cheek splitting smile that shows off her dimples, but a soft smile.

You want to affirm it with your lips, you want to assure her with fervent touches just how crazy she makes you feel, yet your waiter approaches the table and she flicks her tone to efficient when she bypasses the wine list to ask instead for water. You take a coke. You take a moment. You order a bowl of teriyaki style shrimp and she requests the swordfish salad with a baked potato.

And it's all _really_ yummy, and the sauce is a little spicy, and you carry on a conversation of nothing in particular as you both munch your ways through your meals. It's just…

Really, really, _perfect_. It's perfect when she leans across with swordfish piled high on her fork to offer you a taste, and it's even more perfect when she orders a large slice of chocolate fudge cake with a side of ice cream and tells the waiter to just bring two spoons because she plans to share with you. It's perfect in a way you haven't quite imagined before, because you've done dates, you've done dates aplenty, but you've never before felt like you were doing a date with the woman you want to spend the rest of forever with.

It adds weight to the way she glances up at you between bites of the cake; it makes you mark each moment safe as a memory. And _thank you,_ you tell her when the dish has been scraped clean and you settle back in your chair with your tummy filled full to bursting; "That was the best shrimp and the best cake, and possibly even the best ice cream _ever."_

"Worth the drive for the seafood, right?"

"And for the view," you say with a wink.

"The view _is_ something spectacular."

Her eyes are on you and your eyes are on her, and you drop your gaze to catch the smile on her lips. "You do know though," you say, finding a tease that you're sure will please her, "I would've been happy to cook you dinner at home; it's not just eggs I can ace in the kitchen, and we could've made some pretty spectacular views of our own."

Her gaze is now centred on your lips, and you lick slowly along your smile.

You tease the thought further;

"I think I'd quite like to view you across the breakfast bar first, and the cupboard in the corner would look _awesome_ with some hot and sexy Santana spread over it…"

You imagine it, and it would. You imagine her pliant before you with her legs wide open and your fingers tracing her thighs, and;

"This is why we're eating out," she tells you, her voice slightly strained, and you pout your way towards a further explanation because _eating out_ is what you want to be doing, and you're not at all sure why she's subverting your fantasies. "I wanted to talk, Britt," she says, and you fight the temptation to roll your eyes away in jest.

You grin and you wiggle your eyebrows again instead; "Have you never heard of pillow talk?"

And she laughs. She creeps her fingers across the top of the table and she finds a hold of your hand. "I'm being serious Brittany. I've got all this stuff going on, and thoughts to get straight, and I just…" she shrugs her shoulder and squeezes your hand, "…I thought you could help, or something, to…"

"Get your thoughts _straight_?"

You see the frustration colour her eyes a little, and you pull away from playing so easily. You squeeze back against her fingers and you find serious in your tone; "I'm here to help, Santana, okay? We can talk all night if you need to…"

She drops her eyes on your words though, and you guess. "…You're not staying all night though, are you?"

She shakes her head, and she chances a glance up to your eyes, "My dad is back in town in the morning and my abuela is insisting on a ridiculous _family_ breakfast before he leaves again. It's just easier if I play it cool right now; at least until I get things…"

She stops herself from saying _straight _again, and you offer her a small smile.

"It's okay," you say, swallowing down the sigh that suggests different. "I've got a super busy day tomorrow, and then I've got a hard dance session planned with Mike in the evening; I should probably be grateful that I'm gonna get some sleep tonight."

You're not really though, and she doesn't look exactly thrilled by the arrangement either. She offers you a small shrug and a soft spoken _sorry, _and before you can tell her again that it's okay, the waiter arrives to clear your dessert dish and present you with the option of coffee.

You look to her with your brow raised, you let her call the shots, and she asks your waiter if there's any way at all that you can take your coffee order to go. It encourages both of your eyebrows to raise in question, and once he's assured her that he can find a way to make it so, you put it into words; "To go? We're driving back already?"

She shakes her head _no_, she smiles uncertain;

"You can get down to the beach from here," she says, dropping her eyes away before lifting them again. "I thought we could walk, and talk, and…"

"I think that sounds kind of perfect," you say, and her smile works its way back towards certain.

…

You stop at the car before you head down to the beach, and she stores her bag away, and you grab your jacket while she raises the roof back up. You've both slipped into a comfortable kind of silence, and while you wait for her to lock up the car, you lift your eyes up and look at the stars. You count the constellations you remember the names to, and you count even more the ones that you don't. Because there really are so many, and you could number them up into the millions and you'd still fall shy of counting past the first few handfuls.

When she calls _Britt, _you bring your eyes back down; she's looking at you across the top of the now raised roof and you shoot her a smile; "The stars look kind of amazing from out here," you say, and she walks her way around the car to stand by your side. She's carrying her coffee in one hand, but the other she drops to seek out your spare one, and you link your fingers loosely together. You let her lead you; you match the pattern of your footsteps to the rhythm of hers, and when she stops on the sand and asks you _left or right,_ you smile and you shrug and you say _whichever._

You're pretty sure she could lead you right on out into the ocean, and as long as her hand was held in yours, there's a fairly high chance that you'd follow her blindly. And happily. And you'd float off past the moonrise and exist on a diet of sea salt and shrimp.

It's a fun thought, if a somewhat unrealistic one, and when she tugs your hand in the direction of right, you settle for sipping at your coffee instead. The waiter hadn't lied when he said he'd fix them for you to take away, and you'd seen the extra large smile and even larger tip that Santana had left on the table in gratitude. You had offered to split the check, you'd even smiled a little slyly and suggested putting it on your MTV expenses card; "This is like therapy for my really long day," you told her, "I'll file it under _necessities_ and no one will be any the wiser."

She refused your offer with a dismissive wave though, and insisted that she wanted to make the most of her privilege before she lost it; "I'm about a month away from being disowned," she said, far too nonchalantly for the words she was speaking, "it'll be nice to leave a hefty credit card bill to remember me by."

And she'd shrugged, and you let it slide, and it's only now, halfway down the beach and wrapped tight in moonlight and shadows, that you bring her words up again. You tug on her hand first and you send her a soft smile to cushion the harshness of her prediction; "What you said before, San, back at the restaurant… Did you mean that?"

And she looks at you like she gets it, yet she speaks as if she doesn't. "That the chef there does a much better swordfish steak than that fancy place on Wiltshire? Sure, Britt; hands down the guy's a genius. Did you know he's been there for years? Like, he's probably made me dinner more times than our cook at the house has."

"You like the place a lot then," you say, still letting her lead.

"I love it. When me and my mom moved out, this was the first new place we discovered, just us. I still come here sometimes when I want to get away. It's like, a good memory, you know?" And you nod. You sip some more of your coffee and you pause your footsteps beside her when she comes to a stop. "Do you want to sit?" she asks, and you let go of her hand to situate yourself as gracefully as you can down on the sand.

You do the easy silence again for a short while. You finish your coffee and she finishes hers, and you stand your cups next to each other in front of you and pile little mounds of sand around them so as they don't topple over. When you've succeeded there, you lean over a little and pour some sand out onto her hand… You trail it across her wrist and you begin to bury her fingers. "You know San," you say, when half her hand is hidden away, "if your dad really did do something as dumb as disowning you, I'd take up ownership in an instant." She turns her head and flits her eyes to yours, and you continue on with more words; "It wouldn't even have to be a big deal, if you didn't want it to be. You could take the spare room… You could definitely rearrange all of my boxes for me…"

You lift your eyebrows up and down in an attempt to tease her smile out, and when that doesn't work you lean across and bump your shoulder into hers; "Whatever you want to do Santana, I'm gonna be here to help you."

And she does smile a little, and she also releases a sigh.

"That's just it though, Britt, I don't even know what I do want to do. I know what I want, that's ridiculously obvious… But how the hell do I get it, because honestly, I can't even begin to picture the scenario where I stand in front of my family and announce that I'm a…"

She stops herself. You drop the sand from your hand.

"A liberal?" you say, and you bite your lip. And she looks at you, she tilts her head to the side and she _laughs_. Not in some crazed outpouring of mirth, but enough to let you know that you're not yet talking your way through a crisis… She's not about to breakdown over words beginning with L that her family are sure to disapprove of.

"I'm definitely not a _liberal_," she insists though, and this time it's her shoulder knocking into yours.

"I hate to break it to you, San, but I don't think you're really much of a republican either."

"There's possibly some merit to that statement," she admits, slipping a small smile in your direction. "What's bad is that I can't even tell you which would disappoint my family the most; me loving the ladies or me loving a liberal."

You bite your lip again. You fight the magnitude of the grin that wants to grace your features at the realisation of her words, "You love a liberal?" you enquire softly, frowning when she pulls her eyes away from you.

"You know what I mean, Britt," she says, almost a stutter. "If _I _was a liberal, or…"

"I get it," you say, and you shift some of the sand you piled on top of her hand, to trace a little tickle on her skin. "Your family are going to be pretty pissed at you, no matter what you tell them, right?"

She shrugs and she tells you _sure._ She tells you how in truth, her dad will probably pause before shaking his head and leaving the room, and her abuela will condemn her down to the fires of hell before ordering her from the house. "I'm kind of hoping I get to keep my car; it was a gift for my 21st birthday, so, I don't know…"

You tease the sand from the spaces between her fingers and you fit your own there. "Maybe it won't go so bad," you say. "Back when Mercedes told her parents she was dating Sam, they went kind of crazy at first. It worked out though… Like, everything's really good now. Maybe,"

"No way. It's not just the hell fire, it's the Lopez name I'll be tarnishing. Abuela still wears black to church on Sunday to pay penance for my parent's divorce; there's no way this has a happy ending. There's no way they'll want me around once they know."

You sigh;

Relieved that her future plans, no matter how disorganised, are still aimed at a way for her to be with you, yet really sad, because;

"At least they'll finally have a cut and dried reason to hate me," she says.

And you hear her really sad.

It doesn't matter if she tries to cover it, if she rolls her eyes at you as if her family hating her is nothing close to a big deal, because you hear the tremor in her voice and you cling a little tighter to the fingers beneath yours. "I'm sorry," you whisper when she sighs past her words, and she turns her head again to look at you;

"You're sorry? What could you possibly have to be sorry for?"

And you shrug. And you lean into her a little.

"Maybe if I hadn't…" You begin, yet you're not sure what to say. You can't say you're sorry for chasing after her, because you didn't, you just somehow managed to find each other at exactly the right moment. And you can't apologise for falling in love with her, because it would be the biggest lie you ever told, and you don't think you can find a way to say it.

You let your words trail off into silence. She breaks it straight away.

"You didn't do anything wrong Britt; you're like, the opposite of wrong. If it wasn't for you, I still wouldn't have realised how much I've been missing. If anyone should be sorry, then it's me for dragging you into this mess."

She goes to lift her hand from under yours, but you apply a little pressure, and you hold her where she is; "No San, if anyone should be sorry," you say, placing your words before her, succinct and sure, "then it's the people who can't see how amazing you are. There's absolutely nothing about you to hate; nothing at all. They're wrong, Santana, they're just… they're really _wrong_."

She looks away from you, out towards the dark line of the horizon and the inky blackness of the ocean, and you lean into her a little more. You take your hand off of hers and you link your arm through her arm instead. You rest your head down on her shoulder, you look into the same distance she seeks, and you wonder just how hard it is to formulate a future based on so much uncertainty. You wonder until she speaks again, and you hear the hardness in her voice. She's telling you the truth of what's been worrying her days, she's laying it out straight when she tells you that she really does imagine she'll be left with nothing;

"…I'm twenty-one years old and my net worth is the credit I regularly siphon from my father's card. I don't have anywhere to go, I don't have any other family worth talking about. I thought maybe college, you know, because at least I could find cheap housing, but there's no way I can qualify for a scholarship now, and even I could, how am I going to live?"

It's like a rush of words and a rush of worries, and you want to catch them all and fashion them back into the shape of happy. You pick the one word positive and you carry it back to her, unwrapped and free from harsh tones; "I think you'd be awesome at college, scholarship or not," you say, and when you lift your head, she looks towards you. "I wasn't joking about my spare room, either, so you never have to worry about having nowhere to go."

And she smiles at you, and she closes her eyes.

She opens them up again on a sparkle;

"That's so sweet of you Brittany, and I appreciate it so much, honestly I do, but…"

She sighs. "…I'm not going to freeload off of you. I'm not going to be a charity case."

"It wouldn't be charity."

She looks as though she's about to rebut your words, so you drop your tone. You lean into her again and you bump up against her; "There's other ways to pay for things, Santana, without using cold hard cash..."

You say. You play; just a little, just to ease the immediate woe.

And you spy the way her lip tugs upward. You recognise the beginning of her smile.

"…I'm sure I could even find a way to sneak you full-time onto my expense account at work; I definitely saw a clause for _sex-slave _written somewhere in my contract. The position's there waiting, if you think you can fill it."

She bites her lip and you wonder for just a moment which way she's going to go.

Whether she'll reply with hard or soft.

And,

"Will that be salary pay, or should I bill by the hour?"

"It depends on the workload you're planning to take on. If previous examples are anything to go by, then I'd say the big bucks are definitely to be gained from an hourly rate."

You grin at her as if the answers to her problems are as easy to find as the wit in your words, and she studies you grinning; she stares a look into you that freezes your lips lifted and holds your breath, and you don't move again until she does. Just her hand at first, up to your face, and then her lips…

Like a kiss to confirm the terms of your contract.

Or just a kiss because,

"I really wanna make out now, Britt,"

She tells you, her lips still touching yours.

And you breathe in her breath, you hold yourself still in that moment of anticipation;

"Will that be on the clock, or off?" you ask, smiling against her. Yet she doesn't answer. She slides you down into the sand, she slides her hands inside of your jacket, and she slides her tongue inside of your mouth.

And you see stars, and you stop counting.

And you lose all of your problems inside of her kiss.

….

A kiss that you're sure really does carry you out and across the ocean to play amongst the waves. One minutes her tongue will be deep in your mouth and stroking you sensual, and then she'll be tracing the line of your neck, or she'll be turning your head to speak breaths into your ear. And her hands wander your skin and tease touches beneath your t-shirt, and her legs fall between yours, and her hips pin you pliant, and you roll with her. You rise upwards to meet her desire and you sink down when her caresses slide slow towards soft.

Like a tide that rises and then relaxes.

Like kisses that claim and calm you both.

Because her breathing is even above you. She's up on her elbows placed either side of your body, and she's just staring down at you, dropping occasional kisses to your lips like declarations still silently spoken. She nudges her nose with yours, she smiles so precious before she flutters her eyelashes against the soft skin of your cheek. And you giggle light, and she stares deep.

She whispers _butterfly kisses_ in the space above you, and all you can do is smile.

"I love butterfly kisses," you whisper.

You breathe.

She touches her lips to yours.

"I love _Brittany_ kisses," she smiles against you.

You smile back. You wait for her to give you space and then you say; "I really love _Santana_ kisses."

And she stares deep, and her nose nudges yours.

"I love…" she starts, and she stops. Her voice wavers.

"…Awesome friends?" you offer.

And she doesn't take her eyes away. She doesn't nod her confirmation.

Like maybe _awesome friends_ isn't quite enough anymore to contain everything you're feeling. Like she needs new ways to say it, or she wants to find that one perfect way to say it. Yet she stares, her voice silent, and you say, almost silent;

"I've never fallen in love before…"

You whisper, "…And now I'm falling really fast."

And she says,

Or she doesn't. She holds her tongue inside of her mouth while her eyes hold yours locked tight in the moment. And eventually, "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

And she says _okay._

…

And it is okay.

It's okay when you smile, and it's okay when she shifts you, or you her, and again your seated at each other's sides, and she hugs against you for warmth and you watch the moon rising higher. She hasn't spoken much since she made it _okay, _and it's you, joining together the dots in the sky again, who deigns to disturb the quiet.

"Do you ever make wishes on stars?" you ask, your eyes absently tracing the shapes of the universe.

"Not since I was really small."

"What did you wish for then?"

She lifts her head from your shoulder, and joins her eyes to the horizon; "I don't know; normal stuff? A ball gag big enough to fit Berry's mouth."

Your shoulders shake and you remember. You talk about the one thing you haven't spoken about this evening, because sure, she asked you if your day was long, but she didn't seek specifics about work, and during the delight of dinner and everything after, you haven't wondered once to bring it up.

Now you wonder. You lay it out straight;

"I saw Rachel today," you say, and you turn your head to the side to face her.

She doesn't flinch; she doesn't move. She just says, "Oh."

"She gate-crashed my early morning meeting with Holly; apparently Quinn's only winning because of _Aryan bias_, or something… I think she wishes she was blonde. She brought muffins."

"That sound likes Rachel; baked goods and bullshit. She held this cake sale for the _Equality Club_ to attend some seminar in Washington once, only Quinn had us lace the mix with weed and…"

She trails off and you ask, "And what?"

She shrugs. "It was actually a pretty shitty thing to do."

"Or kind of generous, depending how you feel about pot."

She tilts her head and looks at you, she rolls her eyes; "You're supposed to be supporting the new _nicer_ me," she tells you, squeezing your hand.

"I am, completely, I love _nice." _And again you remember. You remember about eating nice for breakfast. You smile. You frown. "I have to have Rachel _and_ Quinn on my show."

"Together?" she asks, her eyes widening.

"Right. That was the upshot of Rachel's whining… Equal exposure and a spot on Fondue for Two. Holly was the one who thought it would be awesome to expose them equally on the same show… I think she might secretly be a sadist."

You feel the tension slide across her shoulders. You feel it in the way she straightens at your side and takes a deep breath in; "Her and Quinn sound perfect for each other," she says, and you ask;

"Have you spoken to her yet?"

And she tenses tighter.

"No."

"Okay."

"I still don't have a plan," she continues. "It freaks me out not knowing what she's up to, like I'm sure she's going to show up at the door any minute and reveal all of my misdeeds to my abuela…" She waves the hand not holding yours off out in front of her, "…Then I tell myself no way; Quinn's a lot of things, but if it came right down to it, she wouldn't do it… Maybe. Or she would, and she's just waiting for the right moment, maximum exposure or something."

"She doesn't know about us," you say quietly, and she shrugs her shoulder against yours.

"She knows about me. She suspects about us."

You think back over your day. You think back over yesterday. You think back over everything.

"I still don't know," you offer, tentatively tracing the words in your head, "if all of this is Quinn's number one priority."

She drops her brow, she looks confused.

"Seriously, San, just think about it… Like, she didn't mention you once today, not at all. Don't you think if she was busy trying to work us all out, she'd be pinning me down for information? Or, I don't know… At least _something_?"

"She's clever," she says.

"I know, right?"

And she looks at you again, and she sighs. "Honestly Britt, I can wish on all the stars that it was different, but I know how Quinn works; she'll be plotting something, she'll be figuring out a way to take down Berry, and Me and… She's probably got her eyes on Finn somewhere down the line too. I just want it all over with, whatever it is."

And you think, and you wonder, and you tell her the missing parts.

"She's going back to Yale this weekend. She was arguing with her dad's assistant all day; apparently she's meant to be going to Santa Barbara and,"

"She not going to the convention?"

"I don't think so. She seemed kind of adamant that she needed to do school stuff."

She dips her eyebrows again at your words, and you watch her bite at her lip. "It's a pretty big deal this weekend," she tells you, "all the party bigwigs are going to be there. She's seriously not going?"

You shrug. "I don't think so."

"Even my abuela's attending as my father's _special _guest; it's like a who's who of everyone you'd never want to meet. Russell will be pissed if she's a no show… Like, _really_ pissed."

And you nod.

And she drops silent. And you round it all off.

"I think Rachel wants me to defect to her side."

It has the opposite effect of dipping her eyebrows, and she raises them up instead, "I thought you said she wanted on your show?"

"That too," you say. "She invited me out for lunch… She gave me her number."

"You've got Rachel's number?"

"Crazy right?"

"Are you gonna…"

"I don't know. I don't think so… It wouldn't be right."

"Right," she says, and her eyebrows drop to find her thoughts, and she stares off into the distance.

…

You sit a whole lot longer, just winding down your day. She asks you more about Rachel, and you tell her everything you remember being said. She doesn't ask anymore about Quinn, and you don't speak her name again. When she shifts her lips against yours, you guess she's all talked out, and when she stands and takes your hands, you let her lift you up. She holds the door for you again when you make it back to the car, and as soon as the engine is running and you're out on the road, she finds your fingers across the centre console. She doesn't drop the roof this time; she keeps you cocooned inside the privacy of your bubble, and she peppers the silence with hummed out melodies which match the blues of the tunes that are playing on the radio.

A part of you wants to ask her to sing, yet the larger part just sits happy and watching.

And she watches you, in fits and starts. Her eyes drifting across from the road to search out your smile; her lips lifting every single time in perfect mimicry.

When you pull up outside of your apartment, you don't lose the smile.

You wait until she's turned off the engine. You tell her _hey. _You tell her _thank you_ for what was possibly your most awesome night ever. And she smiles;

"Better than Monday night?"

"On a very definite par with Monday night. I mean, I miss your body San, I _really_ miss your body…" You drop your eyes for emphasis, you trace the outline of her chest with pupils sliding wide with desire, and you tell her, "…But moonlight and stars and the best shrimp I've had in forever, are pretty special too."

She unclips her seatbelt and you figure she's going to lean across to kiss your words. She turns towards the door though, and you grin at her gallantry.

"You don't have to walk me in," you say, and she pauses to look at you. She dips her eyes and raises them up on a smile;

"It's not much of a date if I don't walk you to the door."

So you let her, and she does, and you stand with your hands in front of you and your cheeks pinking while you think of a way to say goodbye. Because she keeps kissing you. Not hard, not pushed up against the closed door and damning propriety to demand entry… Just soft kisses and sweet kisses, and you don't say goodbye. You just pink, and you flush, and you blush beneath her lips. You touch your tongue to hers and you hold her against you, and;

"Me too," she whispers, when you pull back to steal a breath.

And you look, and you listen, and she tells you;

"I'm falling really fast."

…


	19. To Catch A Falling Star

A/N: Again, thank you to everyone reading and reviewing and enjoying the story. And, special thanks to Kat, for having the almost spooky knack of knowing just what's bothering me, and finding a way to fix it. Much gratitude, Lady... The much-est.

...

Thursday to you is a blur of constant contradictions; your morning had begun with Quinn. Quinn, who yesterday had been distracted and distant and determined to taint the day with her own frustrations, had today greeted you as if the firmness of your friendship was giving her solid ground to stand upon. There was no hesitation in her happy hello, and when she swooped in to kiss the air around your face, you felt her lips graze your cheek and her breath hit your ear;

"Brittany!" she exclaimed, treating you to a full-on Fabray special smile, and then she'd launched into an apology; not stumbled or mumbled upon. Just,

"About yesterday," she'd said, rolling her eyes heavenwards, "I am so sorry about my hideous mood; I'm well aware of _all_ of the effort you and Sam are investing for me, and honestly, I really do appreciate it."

And you looked at her. And you weighed her words.

"Did you sort out your school stuff?" you ventured, trying to ascertain the reasons behind her ease, and again she smiled and again her eyes flitted away in play;

"It really was never a question, Brittany. If there's one thing my father doesn't get to meddle in, then that's my education. I really am top in all of my classes; I know what I'm doing."

"So what are you doing this weekend?"

She looked at you. You were sure she was weighing her own words;

"Securing my future..." And she smiled. "There's a project I've been working on pretty hard this last year, and there's some data; information that needs overseeing. It's all extra credits and tags to add to my resume…" she shrugged a little and spread her smile wider; "…I'll show you when it's finished Brittany. It's certainly going to be a showstopper."

You nodded along and you trailed in her wake as she flitted through the day obviously high on the thought of getting away for the weekend. It was different seeing her excited for something outside of this election and the show and the online polls, and although you stored everything away for future consideration, you did loosen up alongside her and your day did pass both quickly and relatively quietly. The only time she stumbled in her step and flashed a face that bordered on annoyed was when you broke the news to her about Fondue for Two.

You slipped it in around lunchtime; you waited until she had a spoon full of soup and her hand halfway up to her face, and then you kind of rushed it out fast, and offered her a slight lift to your shoulders; "…I'm working on a plan with Sam, and we'll do our best to make it obvious that Tubbs is Team Quinn all the way, but…"

"Is this a joke?"

"Actually not."

And she looked annoyed. Kind of. She'd discarded her spoon back into her bowl and she'd sat back in her chair and taken a sigh. "Well, this is somewhat unexpected; I didn't think I'd have to deal with Rachel again until the big finale. Is it avoidable?"

"Nope. They want to do more to promote the rivalry on the show. I think they're kind of surprised how well we're doing… they want to capitalise on all the exposure. It'll be fine, Quinn… Me and Sam will take care of it."

And she let the annoyance fade away.

She told you instead that she needed to cancel the plans you had for tomorrow afternoon's shooting because her flight is at lunchtime, and she slipped steadily back into her early ease of composure. Even when she spoke to you about the possibility of rising tension over the next few weeks, she did it all with a smile on her face; "Rachel aside," she said, her hand waving lightly through the air, "it's still likely to get a little crazy around here. Elections bring out the worst in people, and when those people are already the worst…"

She trailed her words away and you considered yours carefully; "You'll be glad when this is all over, huh?"

"When it's all over Brittany, I can assure you I'll be the gladdest."

"Because you get to go back to school?"

"Because I get to leave all of this behind."

You measured the distance between your words and hers; you smiled and you nodded and you counted the days. "It's like five weeks till the election now, right?"

"Just over," she'd said, and she tilted her head and she smiled close to genuine; "Let's focus for now on the next four though, right?"

You just focused on the next four hours. You finished up filming with Quinn, you smiled goodbyes to her and Sam, and you set off on your scooter for the dance studio for your meet up with Mike. You weren't lying to Santana yesterday when you told her you have a hard dance session planned; it's been a while, again, since you could let loose your limbs, and you plan this evening to push them to their limit. It really is a space in which you can think and act free, and you use the time while you're limbering up and waiting for Mike to arrive, to think the freest.

To think of freedom and Santana.

She's been another of your day's contradictions. Like, your lips really do want to downturn when you count the seconds since you saw her last smile, but then you remember the words that she smiled around, and your lips lift high and your thoughts touch the sky and;

_I'm falling really fast._

And you think that falling feels like flying.

And you think that flying feels like dancing.

And you stretch out all of your limbs.

Her texts today have been many. In every break in filming, in every second stolen where you could take your gaze from Quinn and search out instead your inbox, her name was waiting for you. Her words were waiting for you. Like an array of moments from her day, that even when grounded somewhere grumpy, were enough to make you smile.

She told you how incredibly awkward her family breakfast was. You asked how things were with her family. She told you they care too much about the upcoming weekend to care so much about her. You told her you care an awful lot.

It had brought silence for a while. It'd left a small space between messages.

The next one contradicted the grumpy;

"_Looking online at grant opportunities for colleges. My head hurts."_

And you sent back a smile and kisses for her head.

When she told you she was also looking at jobs for unskilled and previously unemployed workers, you dared worry for a moment that she was already finding cloud cover for all her dreams and ambitions, and you started to type some kind of motivational message into your keypad, and then;

"_Good job I have that sex slave thing to fall back on."_

And you laughed. And you agreed. And you told her you'd talk to her later.

That was pre-stretching of your limbs, and now that you're loose and Mike's finally arrived, you really do try your best at putting her out of your thoughts. You're not working on anything in particular tonight; your weekend has been set aside to work solid on the choreography and set up for the Christmas show, so this is all just about dancing for the fun of release. It's been a while since you hung out with Mike though, and you want to concentrate a little on him.

He already has you smiling wide with his reports back on his weekend in New York, and when he details the hours and hours of footage he had to take, you actually feel a little sorry for him. You offer him your soft smile, the one that matches his, and you remark on Rachel's _enthusiasm;_

"Quinn can be all sorts of prickly," you add, deadpanning the downplay, "but Rachel has you guys running around like little hamsters on a wheel. Does she ever let up?"

"She calls it _focus_," he says, quirking an eyebrow, "me and Tina call it an absolute obsession with being number one. She downloaded the app for her phone from MTV and she checks the online polling even more frequently than she bursts into song…"

You widen your eyes on the assumption of how much you assume that to be, and he confirms for you;

"…She bursts into song a lot, _and _she insists that we sing along with her."

Your eyes widen even further on that one, because you know how much Mike doesn't like to sing. He shakes his head again, he gives you his sad look; "She's insisting on giving me singing lessons… In return, I'm going to help her with her dancing."

"That's… _terrible_?" you offer, because you're not really sure how else to word it.

"It is. What makes it worse is that Tina's loving it; I think she actually likes Rachel. Or looks up to her… or _something._"

"She _does_?"

Because you think that must be kind of hard. Tina and Rachel aren't giants, either of them, but you're sure that even with Tina's height deficiency, she still towers way over Rachel's own teeny-tiny stature.

It only makes sense when Mike tells you it's something about girl power. He quotes Tina, he even does that thing with his fingers in the air so that you're sure he's quoting Tina;

"…_She's so great, like, she see's what she wants and she just goes out there and gets it… And she helps people Mike; she really cares… She's even helping you to find your voice…"_

You can't help but laugh. Really, really hard, and when he lashes out and pokes you in the side, it only makes you laugh harder, "Sure you think it's funny now," he says, cheeking up his grin, "but I bet you won't be laughing so hard when she's let loose on the set of Fondue for Two."

It lessens your laughter. It makes you shoot him a look;

"You'll be there too, don't forget," you remind him, raising your eyebrow, "you'll need to film footage for your part of Rock the Vote, so…"

"…So we're both doomed?"

"Sure. You're more doomed though; I'm not the one getting singing lessons."

You smile and you shrug, and he tells you he needs to dance.

As do you.

And so you do.

And you dance crazy. Because nothing at all matters inside of the beat, and your joy is as unbound as your body as you and Mike move your way through routines both practiced and spontaneous. Some moments you compete for the space surrounding each other like some kind of backstreet battle, and in other moments you come together to smooth your way through a slow melody and shapes which sit closer to ballet than your favoured body popping locks and hip hop.

You don't count minutes or hours; you count steps and slides and twists and turns, and you counts your breaths, in and out, you count muscles stretching and muscles contracting, and you lose yourself in the love of it.

You lose your limbs to the ache of it. And when you finally come to rest, when you and Mike both fall to the floor with the biggest of grins stretched wide across your face, you lose everything but the freedom and the feeling, and your mind flies fast through dips and turns, and you turn, unbidden, your words, your thoughts, chasing and racing, and…

…_I'm in love with Santana_…

Breathless yet sound,

You say.

Out loud.

And he looks at you, and your eyes widen, and your hand comes quick to cover your mouth, and…

"Like the band?," he asks, cocking his brow.

And you nod, you think, yet you don't make more words. Because you're not actually sure where those ones just came from. You were just _feeling_ and free and… Sure, you've told yourself a million times before in the quiet of your mind just how much love you have for Santana, but it's like your effusive just lifted your words up and…

Mike's looking at you, waiting for your answer, and you keep your hand glued across your mouth to keep it in. He dips his eyebrow before he lifts his eyebrow and, "Wait, _Santana…_ Isn't that the _Satan_ chick who tortured Rachel in high school? With Quinn, right?"

You mumble something unintelligible beneath your hand and he smiles curious and rolls onto his side towards you before reaching out to lift your hand up from your lips; "That's what you mean, isn't it? You like the girl and not the band?"

"Maybe…" you say. "I mean, the band isn't really my style of music, so…"

"But isn't she kind of _evil_ or something? The way Rachel used to talk about her…"

He pulls his face into something like a grimace, and you bite at your lip. You didn't mean to blurt out any kind of deep seated secret tonight, yet you did, and now… "She's not evil," you say. And he looks, and; "She's really not, Mike, she's way more awesome than anyone else I've ever met, like…" You shrug your shoulder and you pull yourself up to sitting, your brow dipping down as you think it into words; "Like you and Tina and Sam and Mercedes… She's good people. The best."

"So you've got yourself an office romance, huh?"

"Well, no, not really, because she's nothing to do with the production."

"Still…" he says, and he grins, "I can't wait to tell Tina. She's gonna be so jealous you told me before her; I never get any meaningful information before she does."

You lean over to him, where he's still laying across the ground, and you place your hand across his mouth now; you drop your tone, you fashion your face serious, "You can't say anything, Mike, this is _super_ secret. You probably shouldn't even tell Tina."

And he licks your hand. His tongue pokes out and he wipes his saliva across your palm, and you lift your hand away. "That was so gross," you say, and he laughs, and he pulls himself up to sitting at your side.

"Super secret?" he asks, "You said yourself though, it's not work related; I can't see anyone having a problem with it."

"Right," you say. And your eyes drop, and you think it through fast. "It's still a secret though Mike. Like, Sam knows, of course, but… It's just really complicated, and I'd really appreciate it if…"

He mimes locking up his lips, and you smile hopeful;

"…Just, keep it all on the down-low, yeah?"

"Your secret's safe with me, Britt."

And he smiles. And you scrunch your nose. And,

"So you love her, huh? That sounds like it's pretty serious already; what's this Santana like then, when she's not being Rachel's evil nemesis?"

You tell him.

You cut out all of the deep and dark, and you just tell him. You tell him how she's always doing these really thoughtful things for you, and how she makes you smile and laugh all the time, and how she gets you without you having to feel like you're talking crazy, and how…

"…She just has this way of making me feel like the most special person in the world," you say. "Like, the way she _looks_ at me Mike… the way she…"

_Everything_, you think.

And he leans across, and he ruffles the hair on top of your head.

"It sounds like maybe you have good reason to be serious," he observes, and he chuckles, and he flips his body up to standing. "Come on, let's go get cleaned up, and I'll treat you to a burger; you can tell me more of the wonderful, and I'll try really hard not to tease you about how cute you look talking about her…"

He wiggles his eyebrows and you dutifully flush. You take the hand he holds out to you and you let all of the wonderful carry you off with a smile.

…

Once home you keep your smile. You tend to Lord Tubbington with a song on your lips, you speak to your mom and your sister on the phone and already they're bugging you hard to commit to Thanksgiving back in Lima; and you laugh, and you say _maybe_, and you think _probably_, and your step-dad chimes in to tell you they already stocked up on Cheetos, and you say _sure then_, and you laugh more, and you _miss_ home. You really do, sometimes, just miss hanging out with your family.

It's not enough to dim your shine though, and once you hang up happy with a promise to talk again soon, you let your fingers dial the number they've been craving to call all day. Because she's your biggest smile, and you smile it bright through your opening exchanges of _hello_ and the obvious exchanges of how was your day. You tell her how Quinn is definitely skipping out on the big conference thingy this weekend, and then you ask about her family; you ask her again how her breakfast went;

"_It was like I wasn't even there, Britt,"_ she tells you, _"I swear they only care about the election; my abuela's so caught up in the fanfare for this weekend, she's barely even noticed I'm not hanging out with Quinn. It's weird… I thought…"_

"You thought what?"

"_I don't know. I thought I'd be under a lot more scrutiny… Maybe I thought my abuela would know just by looking at me that…"_

You lead her along again, you nudge for more thoughts;

"…_She's so hot on sin, Britt, maybe I thought she'd smell it on me or something."_

Your smile drops a little, your frown appears slight; "You think this is a sin?" you ask, because…

"_No. No way… I don't… I didn't mean that. But,"_

She pauses, and you sigh. "She thinks that," you say, and she answers _yeah._

"_I guess I must be lucky though," _she tells you, _"turns out no one actually gives a shit what I'm up to."_

And as sad as that seems, you think maybe she's right. At least right for right now. And you think to make ways that make it not seem as sad.

You say, "So…"

You say, "…Your family's away all weekend, huh? That must be a bummer for you."

And you say, "If you think you might be lonely, I don't know… Maybe you should come stay with me?"

"_I should?"_

"Sure you should."

"_Don't you have plans, Britt? I don't want to get in the way, and…"_

You smile.

"I have plans, but… You can be a part of my plans too. It'll be fun."

She asks what your plans are exactly, and you list them off for her. You info her up on what a normal kind of weekend runs like in the life and times of Brittany S Pierce; "Well, I have a lot of work to get done," you say, "Quinn's cried off on our filming tomorrow so I can work a lot from home, but, I really need to get the outline for Fondue over to Holly by Saturday morning…"

You're not filming Monday now, Holly really did buy you a whole week of reprieve, but she is planning to get all of you together over lunch on Monday instead to discuss what direction the show will take. She wants you to bring Quinn; you expect she's asked Mike and Tina to bring Rachel along also. It's not a particularly fun thought, but you're focusing on the outline and a way to make it seem as less stressful as possible.

Next you tell Santana about your tomorrow night plans; the same ones as always; "…It's Friday, so we have our viewing party for the show."

"_Oh,"_ she says.

"It's just Sam and Mercedes," you remind her, "it's not a big deal. It'll be fun."

"_Right…"_

"And then Saturday I have dance."

She says _oh_ again, and again you smile; "You can come if you like," you say, "or you can hang at mine and wait for me. Or, I don't know, if you have stuff to do…"

"_I don't have anything to do," _she says, _"I can come if you want me to."_

You cheer out a little _yay_, and then you ask her about that other stuff. You question tentative about what she was looking up online, and you ask if she's thought anymore about if college maybe is an option for her; and she shushes you. Or she hushes you. Or she speaks softly and says;

"_I don't know, Britt."_

Like she really doesn't.

"We can talk about it tomorrow?" you offer.

And_, "Yeah… I'd like that," _she says.

And you smile. Because the thought of tomorrow just got so much sweeter. And you like that.

…

When you tell Sam about your plans for the night, when your Friday morning greeting is covered in gusto and your smile is brighter than the rising sun, he tells you he likes it too. He tells you that Mercedes will _more _than like it, and then he says that same word as Mike. He says;

"You must be real serious about her if you're bringing her home to meet the family."

You roll your eyes and you grin wide; "It's the fun kind of serious though," you say. And he rolls his eyes and you say more;

"I kinda told Mike about her," you tell him.

It shocks his features a little. "You did?"

"Kinda. By accident. We were dancing crazy, so…"

"You blurted it?"

You nod and he shakes his head, and you know you're both remembering. Like, it's a thing, sometimes, and the first time you told Sam you liked girls as much as boys, you did it on a dance. You were up in your room and you were making him count how many spins you could twirl in a row, and you collapsed dizzy and exhilarated, and, _I really like girls… _you'd said, and…

He's smiling now. Or laughing a little, to himself.

"Mike was really cool about it," you continue, shrugging your shoulder. "Like, maybe he suspects that she's evil still because of the things that Rachel said, but…"

"Mike's solid," Sam interrupts, cutting into your thoughts, "and we all love you Britt; we're pretty much pre-disposed to approve anyone you think is worthy."

You know Santana is worthy. It lifts your lips higher.

"I can't wait for tonight," you tell him, as you head towards your day, and he smiles and he nods and he tells you the same.

…

And tonight comes quicker than you think. Like, you thought the day would drag, you thought all of those post-production meetings and final cuts and frantic flurries would slow your day down to unbearably full of too many hours until you saw Santana; yet, not really. It passes fast, and you work quick, and you're on point, and you're at home and sat in front of your laptop at the breakfast bar way before early evening. It doesn't really count as _tonight_ already, but then, you weren't counting on Santana until tonight, and…

You're not sure if the knock at your door is a surprise.

When you pick up your phone to check the time, you have a message saying she's on her way, and you guess the knock means she's here.

It takes the surprise away from your face, but not your smile.

That bounces, or your feet bounce, or your step does, and you greet her. Like Tuesday morning in reverse, because now she's stood at your door with a bag in her hand and she's coming and not going, and she doesn't look lost. She looks at you and you feel special.

And you look at her, and;

"Hey," she says.

And _sure_, she can stand there looking all drop-dead-_gorgeous_ and expect _hey_ to somehow cover it, but it doesn't. It's not even close to covering it.

You raise your eyebrow and you reach out your hands to take a hold of her jacket; you pull her towards you and you kiss your _hey_ onto her lips. You show her the way it's meant to be said.

Because it's been _two_ days.

Two whole days.

And that's a lot.

A lot that you secret inside of your kiss, yet, your secrets are less hidden now and you break away to find her ear, and you whisper, "I _missed _you."

She wraps her arms around you tight and you hear it in her hug.

"I missed you too," she says, and you hear it in your ear.

And you think about falling.

You catch her bag when it slips from her shoulder, and you stand back to let her inside. Not slowly, but surely, like she's kind of figuring out that she belongs here maybe, that she's not some kind of casual guest, like there's nothing at all casual about any of this.

Except there is, because it is just Friday night, and you want her to relax.

She's not really dressed for relaxing though; in fact, as you let your eyes take a lingering journey up and down her body and her legs and her legs and,

"Nice legs," you say, and when she gives you a look, you say;

"Dress. I totally meant awesome dress."

And you wink at her, and you let your eyes slip down to her legs again.

It's not an elegant dress, it's not like she's over-topped it and figured your Friday nights for being black-tie events, but it is more than you'd expect for couching on your sofa. It's green and black and full of stripes, and where it stops dropping at somewhere mid-thigh, her long black socks tease at her knees and draw your gaze to that space in between.

And you look, and you linger, and she shakes off her jacket.

"Where shall I put my stuff Britt?" she asks, bringing your eyes back up to hers, and you hold out your hand for her coat and you carry it along with her bag.

"I'll just throw it all in my room," you say, all sorts of casual, "Tubbs is in the kitchen if you wanna say hi; help yourself to anything… Like a drink, or…"

She smiles. She takes the seat next to yours at the breakfast bar, and when you get back from stowing her stuff away next to your own in your room, her left hand is stroking through Lord Tubbington's fur, and her right hand is supporting her head and she's staring at your laptop. You see her frowning and you take a step forward.

"That's all top secret stuff, Santana… If my boss knew you'd seen that, there's a big possibility I'd have to take you down."

"Yeah?"

"Possibly," you say, taking another step towards her.

She rolls her eyes smiling and turns her stool to face you; she crosses her legs, real slowly, one over the other, and you swear it looks like poetry.

"As tantalising as the thought of you taking me down is, Britt," she laughs, motioning you closer with her hand, "I'm supposed to wear glasses for reading; after the first two lines it all became blurry. I got that there's cheese involved…"

You get close enough to touch and you bring your hands down to rest on top of her crossed knees. You finger the top of her socks. You tilt your head to the side for a moment as you flit back over memories, as you recall the twinkle of fairy lights and a girl in a gazebo with glasses and a book, and then you smile. "I like you in glasses," you tell her, nodding your head to affirm it, "they make you look super sexy and really smart."

She grins back at you and then she dips her brow; "But you haven't seen me in my glasses," she says, and you scrunch your nose.

"I have, actually. Like, ages ago, at the ball that time."

And you see her remember.

You see her smile deepen. "I forgot about that."

"You did?" you ask, and your pout presses your lips out.

It scrunches her nose up, it draws her eyes down to your mouth. She leans up to kiss you quick, and you let her push your pout away. "I meant the glasses," she says as she pulls back. "I forgot I was wearing them; I didn't forget about… Well, _this._ I'd never forget any of this Britt."

And you kiss her. Not so quick, and with a little more tongue.

Still not more than a tease of a taste though, because not only do you still have your work to finish up before Sam and Mercedes are due to arrive, but also, Lord Tubbington is sat right in front of you, and you know he's sore still from how much time you've taken away from him to give to Santana. You don't think getting hot and heavy in front of him with the cause of all your distractions is the way to make him any happier. So you step back. You scoot yourself onto the stool at her side, and you explain that you really need to get this stuff done;

"It's nightmare enough that I have to have them both on the show," you say, sighing out a little of the sentiment, "at least if I can firm up a solid plan, I can keep casualties to a minimum. Holly's got a whole lot of faith in me at the moment, and… I just…"

You shrug your shoulder up and down, yet the way she's looking at you makes you pause before more words appear. "It'll be fine," she says, and your lips find a grimace. "It will, really. Not only are you a proven _genius_ when it comes to this stuff, you've got the feline equivalent of a sumo wrestling ninja on your side." She underlines her point by leaning across and stroking Lord Tubbington again; "I wouldn't fancy either of their chances if they start something with this guy around."

You agree, because sure, he may appear all kinds of slovenly, but he's shown a thousand times that he's a lot more agile than he looks. You figure he can handle Quinn. You might have to buy him some ear-muffs to handle Rachel.

The thought lifts your lips again, and it makes you add a little note to the page of notes you have open on your computer screen. "I'm pretty much hoping," you say, your eyes not leaving the laptop as you speak, "that if I can focus on making it a fun show, like… If I just play around a little instead of focusing on all the other stuff…"

She says _hmmm_. She says; "It's hard to keep them two away from the other stuff, though. I told you; they're actually _obsessed_." You turn your head to face her, you pause your fingers from typing up your thoughts.

"Do you think," you say, wondering whims out loud, "that Quinn wants to take down Rachel more than she'd ever want revenge on you?"

She bites her lip, she looks at your cat.

She shrugs her shoulder.

"A part of me would really like to think so; but then, I don't envy Berry if that's true. I don't know… You can never be sure what Quinn's _really_ thinking. I gave up trying ages ago."

And you nod, and she changes the subject. She points at your computer and then she asks if she can fix you anything while you're working; "I could make you a snack if you're hungry, or a coffee, or something?"

"You could fetch me a beer from the fridge," you say.

She slips off of the stool and you watch her walk her way across the kitchen.

Kind of like she belongs.

…

The closer it gets to the time that your friends are due to arrive, the less and less it looks like she belongs. Or, to you it still looks as if she belongs, yet she's acting less and less like that's so. It starts off as a nervous pulling at her dress; you let your eyes flick across from your computer screen and you notice her hands fussing together in her lap; "You okay?" you ask, and she says _sure._

"What time did you say they're going to be here?" she questions, and even though you've already told her, you look across at the clock and you tell her just about another hour, maybe.

"…I mean, they always run a little bit late, but probably like an hour."

She smiles tight. She lifts her hand and strokes the cat some more, and you concentrate on finishing off as fast as you can. You're pretty much done. You have a fair idea of how you're going to pitch the show at lunch on Monday, and you're pretty sure that Holly is going to go for it. You and Sam came up with the angle together, and so far, you haven't pitched any duds when it comes to tossing out ideas for Fondue. You do tell Santana that she can go and watch TV or something while she waits, if she wants, yet she leans her head down on her hand again and she insists on staying where she is.

And you notice her nerves.

Not just in her hands, but in the way she starts to bite at her lip a little. Maybe in the way that you spot her eyes cruising the clock more often than frequently, or the way that little lines of something like a frown start to mar her forehead. It makes you type quicker. It makes you call quits faster than you would have had Santana not been sat at your side and so obviously freaking a touch at the thought of the night ahead with your friends. And you get that… You're pretty sure that most people would be a little nervous given the circumstances, but you don't want her to be freaking any. You do still want her to relax.

You close the lid to your laptop without saying anything, and you swing your stool around to face hers. You lean across and pet Lord Tubbington and then you nudge him not so gently towards the edge of the breakfast bar; "Go get yourself cleaned up, Mister," you tell him, finding an accent and a smile as he jumps down from his spot, "And no overdoing it on the cologne this time!"

You let your smile follow him out of the kitchen door, then you turn it back towards her, and you lift your lips a little higher at the look on her face; "He doesn't really wear cologne," you tell her, straight-lining your lips to serious, "my mom made me stop using it when he came out in a rash. He smelled real nice though."

You shrug your shoulder and she cocks an eyebrow. She twists her stool until her knees rest against yours, and she places her hands down on your thighs, "Is there any end to the crazy stories you have about your cat?" she asks, and you bite your lip.

There actually isn't; you've done a lot of crazy stuff together.

You don't answer her though. You lean forward and place your hands on her thighs the same as she's done to you, and you slip your thumbs under the hem of her dress.

She looks down, she looks up.

"Nice dress," you tell her again, and she slides a little forward in her seat.

Her dress rises up an inch. You measure it with your eyes.

And you stand. You take that place again between her legs and you lean down, you hover your lips in that space above hers, and you watch her tongue poke out in anticipation of your touch. When you kiss her, you kiss her slowly… You seek to calm her heartbeat and remind her not to be so nervous when you're at her side, yet; she bites your lip, and you realise it's not just nerves that are chasing her heartbeat wild. Or the nerves are stirring something else in her a whole lot more sensual than shyness.

Whatever it is, it makes you hiss your surprise beneath your flinch, yet she's soothing the sharpness of her teeth with the smoothness of her tongue already, and she pulls your bitten lip between hers and she sucks gently. And you whimper.

You actually do, because you've never been one particularly to chase after the thrill of sharp edges, yet the way she plays you from rough to reticent with just the swirl of her tongue, is enough to render you ready for more. And your hands agree, or your thumbs do, because they're executing some twirls and swirls of their own as they inch to creep inwards and find the softness of skin on the inside of her thighs.

She slides her legs wider.

You press up against her.

Your thumbs slip from inside to outside her legs as you trace a place up by her hips and your touch teeters at the edge of her underwear; and you think fast, maybe, or you don't think at all when she sucks your tongue into her mouth this time. You fall into her, or against her, and your hands travel to find the curve of her ass and you pull her flush against you.

She moans.

And _Britt_, she whispers, harsh and heavy, and you push harder into her.

You slide your hips up against hers, you pull her inside the friction of the grind,

And her fingers, through your top,

Palm your breasts, and you breathe, or you skip a breath, and…

And, and, and, you want to go on, yet, it's late, or they're early, and you hear Sam's custom knock against the door before you hear him holler loud, and…

"San," you say, on an imperfect pause, and her head drops against your shoulder and she sighs. And then she groans. And you're sure that this must be penance you're paying for some crime in a former life, because she's just _right there_… And her eyes are dark and wide when she looks at you, and you say _sorry. _Or you squeak it. And there's another knock at the door; there's a louder shout and you step back, you find her fingers with yours and you pull her up from her seat; "I'll should go let the guys in," you say, smiling soft, "do you wanna…"

You're about to say _come with_, but she pulls her hand from yours and says she needs to use the bathroom. She looks at your lips and sighs, and she tells you, only slipping a half joke into her tone, that she wants more of that later.

And you look. And the door pounds loud. And you let your wink convey an answer to fight off any remaining nerves_._

…

And she hides her nerves well when she comes out of the bathroom. Sam and Mercedes are sat one side of the breakfast bar, you've slipped back onto your stool, and when she appears, she only falters for a second; just one moment where her eyes seek out your own and you have to smile her back into the room. She speaks with nothing but confidence though; she greets Sam like an old friend, and when Mercedes tells her she's looking fine, she cocks an eyebrow and answers as if they've been bantering back and forth for years.

It's kind of cool. A lot. Like, you're catching all of the not so secretive glances between Sam and Mercedes, and you've been treated to more than a thousand oh so knowing looks, yet still… Everything feels easy and natural and like a normal Friday night; just with Santana slipped in at your side. It even works better when you order take out, because normally you get way too many dishes for just the three of you, but with Santana sharing from your boxes and dipping her dim sum inside your soy sauce, it all evens out a little better.

And she shares your beers so you don't drink too many, and every so often she clinks her bottle against yours, just… well, just because she wants to, you think.

Even when Mercedes laughs and says; "Take a look at the lovebirds," or when Sam shouts your name super loud because you were too busy staring into Santana's eyes to pay attention to another of his impressions of one of the guys at work, it still all feels easy and natural.

She doesn't flinch on _lovebirds. _She doesn't look away when Sam teases you.

And after food, once it's time to go to the front room and switch on the TV in readiness for rocking the vote, she's the first to claim her space on the sofa, even more like she belongs. It has you smiling wider than the moment before, and… Sure, you'd probably smile a little wider still if you're two best friends didn't also feel quite so much like they belonged.

Mercedes has one end of the couch, Sam has the middle, and Santana is perched, legs crossed in front of her, the other end. And the sofa can take four, it can take five at a squeeze, but, you don't want to sit like a sardine pressed against her. So you pause. She wiggles her eyebrows.

You remember the last time you shared the sofa with her.

And you sit on the floor. You tempt Lord Tubbington onto your lap, and then you shuffle yourself back until you can rest up against her legs. She opens them behind you; she pulls you back by the shoulders and she rests her mouth next to your ear;

"Do you think if we tell them about our extra-curriculars here on Monday, they'll sit on the floor instead?"

Kind of quiet, like a whisper, but loud enough to turn Sam's head,

"No chance," he says, stretching his smile, "if I know Britt, the floor's probably not any safer."

And he shrugs, and you look offended. "I resent that," you tell him, scowling out a frown, but Mercedes guffaws something like a laugh before insisting that he preaches the truth.

"This one time, back when we were seventeen," she says, leaning forward to look at Santana, "Britt's mom banned her from having _friends_ sleeping over in her bed…"

"This is so _not_ a true story," you insist, trying to cut her off, but she waves away your words with her hands.

"…We all saw the carpet burns, girl!"

"I was trying to respect my mom's rules…"

You whine it, a little, maybe, but Santana is laughing hard behind you, and asking for more clarification; "Wait, let me get this straight; your mom banned girls from your bed, so you made them sleep on your floor?"

"Not sleep," Mercedes volunteers, "there's no way you get burns on your knees from sleeping."

You cringe. You hang your head forward and hide behind your hair and you wait for the ritual torture to end. It doesn't. Santana's mouth is by your ear again, and now it really is a whisper she breathes out;

"Did you want me to get down on the floor with you?" she asks, low and suggestive, "Or,"

"No," you say, louder than you need, and everybody laughs.

She leans back and you stroke Lord Tubbington for comfort, and you think how incredibly _nice_ it is that everyone's getting along so well. So well, that Mercedes thinks nothing of sharing even more of your antics from growing up back in Lima; she doesn't overdo it on the dating and mating stories anymore, but she tells a laughing Santana all about the time you put food colouring in the water tank so the sprinklers in the garden would water everything pink, or the time you released all the mice from the science block so that school had to be shut for the day while they rounded all the critters back up.

"To be fair," you say, finally looking up and interrupting the tale telling, "the mice thing was mostly Sam's idea; he got all sentimental watching Steamboat Willie, and,"

"No way," he interjects, leaning across to push at your shoulder. "That was all you Britt; all I said was it'd be sad to see Mickey cooped up in a cage… I didn't know it'd make you go all Rodent Liberation Front on our asses."

"You helped me with the plans, Sam," you deadpan, and his smile stretches wider.

"_Theoretical_ plans."

"You lifted the keys from the janitor."

He wiggles his eyebrows and Mercedes calls you both _fools_, yet all you hear is the laughter from behind you. It makes you turn your head further to look at her for a moment; and her eyes are all a sparkle and she's biting hard at her lip. "Most of these stories are made up," you assure her, your tone tickling serious, "my friend's have crazy overactive imaginations; I think it's definitely some kind of vitamin deficiency."

You fashion your face as if you're sad for them, but Santana just raises her eyebrow as if she's not believing a single word coming from your lips. "Really, Britt?"

"Totally."

And she looks at your lips, and you smile really big.

When the ad break comes on before Rock the Vote begins, you go to the kitchen to collect more beer for everyone and Mercedes follows you out to collect your laptop. She likes to follow along with the latest online polls, and she likes to scour the social network sites to relay all of the embarrassing comments as they come in…

"You could dial down the teasing, you know, seeing as how Santana's here," you tell her, opening up the fridge and mocking up your glare.

"Oh hell no; I haven't had this much fun in forever! Besides, your girl's loving it, and I haven't even gotten to the really juicy stuff yet…"

"Mercedes," you say.

And she laughs, and she waves away your warning tone.

"I'm just messing with you; I swear I'll be on my best behaviour."

"You swear?"

But she just smiles. Really, really big, and she winks at you before taking your computer off to the front room.

…

And it's a good job she didn't swear serious or make any promises, because the teasing doesn't let up one iota once the show starts. Yours and Sam's part of the segment is first, and the majority of it is shots you took from behind the scenes of FashionistarZ that didn't have time to make it on last week's show. There's a brief bit about the Fairfield conference, and you have some fun bits from the booth at the mall, and then there's your standard monologue that you record separately, and that's added after the reel of shots is locked. It's all great, and it looks really cool and full of fun, and Mercedes is quick to fangirl, because;

"ZOMG! Brittany S Pierce just gets HOTTER every week!"

And,

"I'd like Brittany to rock more than my vote!"

Or,

"WE WANT MORE FONDUE FOR TWO! SCREW POLITICS! WE WANT BRITTANY AND TUBBS!"

That was the first few minutes of comments she read out. Your cheeks were forced to colour even further through the next excruciating twenty five, and then.

Because, in amongst everything, you kind of forgot.

Not about Santana; you don't think you could ever forget a thing about Santana, especially when she's leaned over you, and her arms are draped over your shoulders and your hands are up and holding onto hers.

But,

You didn't really give much thought to how the show isn't all about you. It was fine with the Quinn bits… Like, sure, they're not talking or whatever, and there's all that really messed up history to take into account, but it's still just Quinn, and she's used to handling Quinn. You forgot to factor in Rachel.

You didn't take the time to consider how Santana would feel sat amongst you all and forced to focus on something, or someone, who for so long she's kept pushed out onto the periphery.

Her hands grip tight when her face comes onto screen.

Just for a second, like a reflex reaction that she doesn't have time to measure. And then there's silence; and… You don't think you've over-told Santana's story to the point that Sam and Mercedes know all of the intricacies, but maybe there's some sort of vibe that seeps out from her, because the laughing does stop. There's no more teasing or taunting from that end of the sofa, and everyone does just focus on the screen.

You hold her hands and you try and see what she's seeing.

Mostly it's New York. Mostly it's just the dream that Santana stopped herself from dreaming. It's like a whirlwind tour of everything that Rachel Berry thinks is fabulous, so like, there's lots of shots of her in dance class at school and on stage at a theatre, and then there's a genius shot of her doing Karaoke with her dad's in some jazzy bar… and…

She should be winning, really, you think.

When her segment ends in a soup kitchen, with her dishing out bowls of food to New York's homeless, while performing a perfect rendition of _Food, Glorious Food_, you wonder how she's not kicking your ass.

You say it, kind of. You break the room's silence, and you proclaim, "That was actually really good."

"Better than us?" Sam asks.

"Better than Quinn," Santana replies.

She pulls her hands from yours and you turn to face her; "I'm just gonna use the bathroom, Britt."

You dip your brow in concern, yet she smiles and she rises, and you lift yourself to fill her warm spot on the sofa. And it _was_ really good. From the point of view of professionalism, yet also, from the point of view you're trying to see from the place that Santana sits. And it looks so good that it hurts. Because, in that other world, the one where nothing got buried or taken away, it's easy to see that Santana would've been happy there.

It's easy to see everything that she's missing.

When she returns, Sam's refreshed everyone's beers again, and the talk has drifted back towards the online poll, and the fact that the early numbers are still racking up heavy next to Quinn Fabray. It fuels Mercedes laughter and her outpouring of over-hyped adulation, and it fuels Sam's obsession with poking you in the ribs;

"Everybody loves Brittany…" He sings out, and you'd probably punch him, maybe, if Santana wasn't standing right in front of you and looking…

Well, like she doesn't know where to put herself.

You hold your hand up and you smile; "You can sit on my lap and be my human shield. I need something to protect me from all this crazy." You tilt your head in Sam's direction, but you don't take your eyes from hers.

And she looks, and you shuffle. Just a bit, so that you can pull your legs up and turn sideways, and you kind of make a space for her, so she can sit next to you, but kind of closer, and…

"You okay?" you ask into her ear when she's tucked in beside you.

You drape your arm behind her, across the armrest, and you let your fingers find hers when she lifts her hand to hold you. She nods, she leans back a bit, and you let it be okay.

You let your friends tease her smile back onto her lips by being the butt of their joking, and when they return to telling stories of your small tales and tall tales from growing up in Lima, you don't stop them and hush their stories, you let them all unravel. You groan and then you giggle, and the more that she laughs and intersperses their words with _God Britt, _or, _oh no way; she didn't_, the more you think that you're happy for her to know your every embarrassing moment if it leads her away from submitting to sad thoughts.

Because she sounds so pretty when she laughs. And she sounds so free. And every time she shakes against you, you feel your world shifting a little more to let her inside.

It ends your first expanded Rock the Vote viewing party on a high. It leaves your lips tainted with the taste of beer and your hands happily waving as you send your friends off to catch their cab, and…

Yeah.

You're alone now.

Not like alone, on your own, but,

You turn and she's taken the place in the middle of the sofa. She's left you spaces to decide either side of her, yet, you're alone now, and you want to be pressed up against her like a sardine. Or something. You want to be close to her. It's not even lust that leads you to place your legs astride her thighs and sit facing her, you just…

"Hey," you say, and maybe it's a little bit of lust. Just enough to bring your lips down to cover hers; just enough to touch her tongue for a moment and say your silent thoughts.

She's smiling when you pull back, and you ask if she had fun tonight.

"I did. It was… _different._ I like your friends."

"My friends like you."

"Your friends have good taste."

She wiggles her eyebrows, and you smile soft.

"I really am glad you came over tonight," you tell her, and you lift your hand and tuck her hair back behind ear a little. "It was more fun with you here. Like, my friends are super fun, but, with you here it was even better."

Her dimples deepen and she rolls her eyes.

"I mean it, San; I might make it a requirement that you have to come _every_ Friday night from now on."

"Wanky."

"I meant _attend_."

"I can attend to that whenever you want me to Britt. You don't have to limit it to Friday nights."

She bites her lip and you can't help but look. You know what she's doing; you know she's taking your sentiments and turning them into something easier, and you lower yourself to kiss her with ease. Just soft kisses. Just whispers of kisses.

And she smiles against your lips. And you pull back certain.

"Do you know what today is?" you ask, and you count it again in your head to be sure.

"Unless we've gone past midnight already, I'm going to go with it still being Friday."

You turn your head to catch a glimpse of the clock, and it's still the earlier side of midnight. You smile, you nod, you say _sure. _"I met you on a Friday," you say, and she cocks her brow curious. "Like, a month ago today."

She doesn't tease her lips to say something easy; she just smiles. She asks _yeah?_

"Absolutely. I've had four whole weeks of Santana Lopez in my life."

She smiles higher.

"It feels a lot longer, Britt. It kinda feels like…" she shrugs and you smile higher, because it feels like your theories on forever and how it's all actually happening right now. You lean forward and you nudge her nose with yours. You pause on the pull back;

"Do you remember," you say, "what you thought the first time you met me?"

She bites her lip again. She lifts her hand to the back of your neck to hold you in place, and she asks; "Truthfully?"

You nod.

"I don't think I've ever been so scared of someone in my life. Like sure, I thought you were hot, that goes as standard, but once I spoke to you…" Her voice rises a little on the last, like she's remembering it right now, and you remember it too. You remember all of your nonsense over the Young Republicans, and you feel your cheeks pinking again. Yet, "…I just knew how much I wanted to speak to you again."

She drops her eyes, and you tilt your head. "That scared you?"

And she looks. At you. And away.

"It scared me enough to…"

"To what?"

"It doesn't matter," she says. But you kind of think it all matters.

You tilt your head forward and touch noses again. You smile at her cross-eyed.

"Do I still scare you?" you ask.

And she falls silent. Really fast.

She finds your thighs with her fingers.

She holds tight with her hands.

"Lots of things scare me," she says, and you pull back to look at her properly.

"What scares you the most?"

And she shrugs and then she doesn't. She leans her lips up to kiss you and you let her; you taste her silent fear. You hear the words she hasn't yet said, and you smile against her.

"It's okay to be afraid of falling," you whisper out onto her lips, yet;

"Maybe it's not the falling that scares me; maybe it's the landing."

"I'll catch you."

"And if you don't?"

You're still pressed close to her lips, and you whisper your words back and forth between breaths. When you pause, she holds her breath; you feel it.

"I will Santana, I promise," you say.

And you kiss her. You lift your hands either side of her face, and you _kiss_ her.

And she kisses you back. And you tell her again, _I promise._

…

It's a promise that keeps your touch light as you lead her to the bedroom, because you could affirm your oath instantly, you could splay her and play her and take her up and take her down, you could spread her wide across the side of the sofa and push that promise deep inside of her, yet… Maybe, you think, you're still not ready to be fast with her.

The stool in the kitchen was different. That was a moment and nerves, hers mostly, and that was touching without thinking and it was what she needed right then. Now though;

Now perhaps, you think she needs without really knowing what she needs.

Like, she thinks she needs to touch you. You think.

A lot.

Maybe.

Like, with her decrees on what's deserved and what isn't and her fear not to fall but to land…

You think.

She's maybe okay with loving you. You know. Inside all of her kisses and her touches and the way she speaks your name and holds your gaze and… You know she loves you. It's a certainty beyond certain. But… You wonder. Maybe it's easier to give than to receive?

For her. Maybe, it's the same as the scariest thing in the world.

And that's why she won't stop touching you.

That's why, aside from that first time when you led her from the bathroom to your bed, and the second time when she led your fingers to find her while she found you, all of the other times have been about you. Just you. Over and over and over again.

She just wants to love you.

And it's a smile. It's an acceptance that you're going to let her love you in as many different ways as she wishes. Yet, it's also a pause. It's also a moment to draw breath as you lead her slowly to your bedroom.

Not ominously. There's not a single dip in your brow to darken this moment, you just lead her with chatter, with nattering about bedclothes and bathrooms and the brushing of teeth. And she smiles back at you easily; she takes her toothbrush to the bathroom, she comes out stripped of her dress and with her hair piled high.

And she looks at you. With her hair piled high and stripped of her dress.

Her underwear matches.

Like, if she wasn't stripped of her dress, then the black lace with the delicate dark green trim would match perfectly. As it is, it just looks perfect. Or she does. Or she looks perfectly at you;

"Hey," she says, her tongue touching her lips.

And,

She just wants to love you. You can see it in her eyes. You can see it in the way she runs her gaze down… and up… and, "You weren't joking about bedclothes?"

Because you're wearing them. Because you're going slow.

Because you're taking your notes of study and putting them into practice.

Because you just want to love her back.

"Nope," you say, and you step towards her.

And she stands before you. "I didn't bring anything to wear to bed; I didn't think…" Her eyes dip, and then they rise, and you can see that she's unsure, both of what to think and what to say. And so you say;

"It's okay. I mostly meant bedclothes for me."

You smile. Her eyes dip in a different way, and the tone of her voice follows.

"That doesn't seem very fair, Britt…" she says, biting her lip. Or she drags her teeth slowly over her bottom lip. "…I want to look at you."

And you pause. You take a breath.

"You can; later. Just, it's my turn to look at you."

Her brow dips.

You don't give her the time to form the thought into her fear though, because another step and you touch her. Lightly, delicately; you lift your hand and trace your fingers down her cheek, and across her collarbone. You pause at the strap to her bra, you wiggle your eyebrows up and down. "This is definitely gonna have to go," you say, and you tease your hand around her back to finger the clasp.

And _Britt_ she says again, and _trust me_ you tell her. Or you ask;

"Just trust me, okay?"

And you kiss her. Really soft and really slow.

You slide your other hand up to unclip the clasp, and then you pull away from the kiss and you pull the straps down her arms. You kiss her again, softer. "Come to bed with me, San?" you ask, and her eyes are dark, and she's sure, not sure, yet,

"Okay."

Quietly. Like a hush, like she's not quite figured it out.

Yet you have, and you lead her with kisses to the edge of your bed. You lay her down without covering her, and then you lie by her side, or you hover above her slightly, your nose touching hers. "I want to show you something," you say, and you press again to her lips. Once and twice and;

"What?" she whispers.

"It's a secret."

"A secret?"

"Sure… Kind of," you smile, and you tease her, just gently. "But…" you say, drawing it out, "…I'll show you, if you want me to."

"Is it a good secret?"

It lifts you back a bit. You rest your head up on your hand with your elbow bent, and your other hand, your other fingers, you let them lead you towards a touch; to her lips, past her chin, down her neck. You pause. You smile. "It's the _best_ secret San," you say, and she smiles back at you.

You kiss her smile. You smile higher. "So…" you say. You ask.

And, "Okay, Britt… show me your secret."

Except it's not really yours. It's hers.

And you touch her.

Like notes you've studied before and like a secret you're sure of, you touch her.

You trace the inches of her skin with the tips of your fingers. And you remind her again of want… Because want is _so_ easy. With her, you want and you want and you want. And you map every moment of it. You tease your lips like a promise, sure but distant as you follow your fingers about her body. You taste her neck. You taste the skin on her shoulder. You dip the tip of your tongue between the valley of her breasts and you slide it sure when you dance down across her navel. You suck. Her skin. Deeper than a kiss…

…And she hisses want, and you suck her softer.

You join your lips to her hips and you trail your fingertips along her thighs.

She sighs,

You kiss her again. You bring your body between her legs and you turn your head to kiss the skin you find there. Like nibbles, or love-bites, or;

"Britt," she says, and you hear her tone deepening down to desperate.

Because she _wants_ your lips to tickle her higher. She wants your kisses in that place untouched by your kisses. She wants…

…And you need.

And you nudge your nose tentative. Against the black and the green of her underwear, you breathe deep and,

Deeper.

Your tongue touches your lips. You swallow.

She lifts her hips.

You lift your body. Because these are her secrets, not yours, and you want to show her slowly, in the way that she deserves. Even if she moans about it, which she does, and even if she sighs a gasp, which she does, when you drag your tongue across the tautness of her tummy, when your hands travel higher and your fingers tease the points of her breasts to tightness, and;

"Please, Britt…" she asks.

You pinch, she prays. Like, _God…_

And your mouth; your lips and your tongue, you take them to her. You wrap them tight around one nipple, you lick harsh across the next. And,

"Britt…" she wants.

And she wants and she wants.

And again,

Like a madness you're making in her, you stroke your tongue higher. You pause to nip at the skin of her neck, to whisper words to her ear, because;

"I want you, San," you say. You whisper, "So bad." And she tugs at your shirt and she says something about _clothes_ and _off_ and _Britt…_

"…I _need_…"

She says.

I _need_.

And your lips touch her lips and you kiss her so hard. And you feel it.

Everywhere.

And for a moment you're lost again. Just a moment where her kiss is the deepest kiss you've ever been inside, and all you can feel and all you can think and all you can know is _her_. And how much you need her. It pulls you back, it pulls your shirt from your body and your shorts from your legs, because you need her skin against your skin and you need to feel her heat and you need…

…Everything, you think.

And she looks at you.

And you're not lost.

You just smile. You lay yourself down soft, and you tell her a secret.

Your hips to her hips and her lips to your lips and you say;

"I need you too, San," and you kiss her. Inside the heat of her body pressed tight against yours, you kiss her. You slide one of your arms beneath her head to lift her closer to your lips, and then you pour thoughts and feelings and _everything_ into the way your tongue fills her mouth. You make her gasp, you make her moan… You pull your lips away, you press them tight… And her hands pull you closer, her fingers scratch along the skin of your back as she clings to the need you're teasing above her. And you just want to love her…

…You just…

"_Please,_" you hear again as her hips rise and grind and seek and search. And you hear her breath hitching the harder you press your lips to her skin, and you see, in her eyes,

And you dip. You trip. You travel her expanses with your tongue set to tantalise and your fingertips tracing slow. Like shapes, like a sacred geometry with heaven's secrets inside; you slide. Her body slick against yours, her moans one minute hitched and pitched high, and then low, and breaths desperate… and _that_ sound. The one she makes when your fingers finally find the deftest of dances across the front of her panties. And she's _so_ hot.

And your fingers slick against silk, because it's a wet heat and a wanton heat, and again that sound. And her hands, gripping into the sheets and twisting in time to her hip's hurried beat. Up, and down, you guide her both ways. You slip your fingers inside the edge of her underwear and you kiss goodbye to coverings. You kiss the length of her legs, down and then;

Up. You pause;

Because she's like every secret spread before you. Everything you feel you'll ever want or need or strive to know, you see, and you breathe; and you taste her.

On your tongue. The tip. Spreading lips.

You _taste _her.

And she makes that sound again, or a new sound, when your hands hold her open and you push your tongue wide against her. You slide against her. And her fingers find your hair and she bucks up into your mouth, and,

…_God…_

You think, or she says, or more. She needs more.

And your fingers find her. Because you want to fill her completely, you want to _feel_ her complete, you want all of her spaces to be your places and you want and you want. And your need kisses your lips tight against her, and her hand holds harsher in your hair, and you do lose yourself. Because there's not a thought beyond what you're feeling, and what you're feeling is too far off to be caught inside words… it's just…

Like a sense, like,

Like taste and touch and sounds and sights,

And her eyes, when you look up are hooded and dark and desperate in the best way, and her voice keeps singing to you, like _Brittany _on repeat, like you really are the only tune on her lips,

And your lips,

Tracing shapes again, and your fingers fluttering against muscles that clench…

You give more. You slide inside another finger wide, and she loses everything.

And you give her more.

You take your rhythm and up its tempo, you take her need and you increase your speed until her sounds aren't sounds but gasps and moans more guttural than the _fuck_ she finds when you suck hard and she bucks hard and your tongue holds tight against her tautness. And when she breaks, when her body freezes fast before shaking quick, you give her more.

More and more and more until the more feels like less. You guide her down to the sheets below, and you ease outside and you settle your lips in gentle kisses that quiver flinches from her body, and you just…

You just love her.

You love her when you lift yourself to slide upwards against skin that shines a sheen in the nightlight, and you love her when she pulls you tight against her, and you love her when her words speak a flurry of nonsense both foreign and familiar, and,

"San," you say quiet, just to hush her. And she hushes, and she looks, and you smile.

And you kiss her. And you don't stop.

When her hands reach for you in the soft words surrounding, you slide from her grasp, and you tell her, you look at her, you love her, and,

"No," you whisper, inside a lip bitten smile. Because, "…I just want…"

And you think assignment eleven, and ways to keep her pressed pliant beneath you, and you think of ways to say everything inside of secret meanings and less weighty leanings, yet;

"…I just want to _love_ you," you do say.

And she looks at you. And her eyes sparkle brighter than the stars and their wishes, and,

"Britt…" she whispers.

And _San_ you say, to hush her. And you kiss her. With want, with need, and with love.

You kiss her.

And through the night, each time she falls,

You're waiting there to catch her.

…


	20. Looks Like Dancing

In the morning you find her fragile.

First you find her sleeping, which in itself is an expression of fragility you haven't seen in her before. She's watched you with your eyes shut tight and she's wondered at your beauty; but for you, seeing her asleep and at rest and unguarded from everything, is something completely new.

And you wonder at her beauty too.

Like actual wonderment. Because she is so beautiful. Even if you allow yourself to step outside of your bias based view, she's still the most beautiful woman you've ever seen. And so you watch her. Or watch over her, maybe, because…

It's a fragile beauty and you want to keep her safe.

Last night…

Just. Last night.

You knew going in that you wished to love her, you knew you wished to catch her falling, and, sure. But, more. She _let_ you love her. And that feels to you like something precious. Something to protect. Like, fragile,

Maybe, is how she looks when she first opens her eyes. Slowly to begin with, still wrapped up in sleep; her eyelids fluttering gently, before shuttering tight… Like, that cocoon state is warm, and outside is cold and sleep is so delicious and…

"Hey," you nudge her, your nose to her ear. And you want to whine _wake up San_; you want to curl your tongue around the curve of her earlobe and whisper all the reasons she has to open her eyes. You stay with _hey_ though. You watch her face change shape as reality finds her, and still, a little, you see the bits breakable. You see it behind her eyes even when they slide to fully open, and you know, because you were there, and you were the one who caught her falling.

Everything here, with you, is new to her.

_Everything._

Yet;

Last night she let you love her.

And today she looks at you fragile.

She shows herself. She graces the shyest of smiles to her lips. Her eyes dip low.

And,

"Are you _blushing_, San?" You have to ask, because how can you not when it's both so cute and so hot. You don't push home the advantage of the tease though; you just kiss her. You lift yourself a little, your weight upon your elbow, and you drop the softest and sweetest _good morning_ you can find down onto her lips.

She smiles higher. And _hey _you say again,

And _hey_ she whispers. And she turns; you back onto your side and herself so she faces you. She takes her time kissing you, her own return _good morning_ sucking your bottom lip gently between her own before she releases it with a soft _pop_. Her eyes drop, her eyebrow lifts, and;

"I like your lips," she announces, and your lips smile surprised.

"You do?"

Because sure, you like her lips plenty too, it just wasn't the words you were expecting her to say. She nods though; she slides early morning sultry inside of her tone. "I _really _like your lips."

And you look at her. Or she's looking at you in such a way as you can still feel your lips pressed tight against her. Not to her mouth, for as sultry and seductive as her mouth is to you, you know that's not the place her tone is teasing you to remember. And you remember.

God do you remember. Her taste on your tongue, her hand in your hair. Pressed there.

Tight against her.

And _San, _you say, and _hmmm_ she answers. Or she hums. Or she bites her lip.

And she wants you to love her.

Again.

Still, and more. That's what she's telling you. That's what her eyes say. Behind the fragile and the beautiful, in that place you mark bravery, she's telling you she's ready and willing and still wanting to jump; she's telling you she trusts you. And it still feels so precious.

It feels like;

Her leg, shifting between yours, sliding forward to tangle you up and pull you closer. Her hands beneath the sheet insist the same; her fingers fleeting as they trace up your side, as her thumb sweeps against the curve of your breast and hitches your breath. She smiles and you mirror her. You let your hands slip beneath the sheets to seek the same sensation, and when her words catch on _Britt_, when her hips angle forward and she fits flush against you and…

"…_please_…" she says, her tone imploring you to touch her, yet you're sure that you already are. Because you can feel her against your thigh, you can feel the heat, you can feel the slick of the slide as she searches out a tentative rhythm to rock to. Yet her eyes aren't closing to concentrate the motion; she's still looking at you. Her eyes are pleading need and now and,

Again, she takes your hand and dances it down between you. She arches her hips back, she guides your fingers to the place she wants you to find her; and she watches you. Her gaze stays tight on yours even as she sighs the sound that says you've found her… She watches you. Like she needs to see to believe what's happening here, or she needs,

…_God, _

When you take her two fingers wide; she sighs it. Not hard, nor harsh, but _Britt_, softer still.

And she watches you. She moves her hips, but not her eyes. And you think you're inside her, you think… Yet her eyes… or her voice, echo inside you, and you feel,

More. Like you want to fall too. Like you want to wrap her inside your own fragile moments and tumble and then tremble together. And you steady her on the pause for the thought, and in your palm you hold her; stilling the rotation in your fingers until you're pressed tight unmoving, and she _watches_ you…

Your eyes to your lips… her hips still move slow. And _Santana_, you whisper, with want and more wonder, because for all of the moments last night, for every time you carried her up and away on tongues that taste and fingertips tracing, you _miss_ her. And with the way she looks at you now;

Hips moving. Eyes fixed tight;

Like she sees your needs and she wants to meet them.

Her left hand travelling quick to find your own slick wet with the way you want her, and your hips move when her hips move, and,

"…_God…" _she says again,

When she slides herself inside you. And heaven, perhaps, or paradise, maybe. Because her eyes haven't once left you, and the depth of her gaze echoes entirely the depth of this feeling. And you insist to her you _love_ this… Like, inside a sigh or a cry… Like, inside that spot where she touches you tighter, where she presses pads of fingers and strokes you higher and,

Still she watches you. And still you watch her. You watch her teeth touch her lips when you mirror her movements, you watch the tension crease her forehead as she clings to the feeling, to the slow in and never out, to the there and there, and, _yes,_

"Right _there_…" you say, and you feel her clench tight. Or your muscles clench, or you want to clench your eyes, but…

"Brittany…"

Desperate and fragile and there for the breaking. You watch, and she watches, and you see. And she…

Or you, falls first and flying. Not frantic, not flurried, not hurried and hastened… Just…

A gentle drop. A drawn out non-stop. A last pitched cry… a wrung out sigh… And together you move until rest comes to find you. Gently spent and limbs heavy. A gentle heavy.

Like the way she still watches you. Calm and content. Heaven spent.

Beautiful;

She is, and _beautiful_ you tell her.

And when her eyes slide to shy, you can't help but to kiss her.

…

You kiss her fragile. And you kiss her beautiful. And then you tell her;

"You're also _really_ hot."

And, "Brittany…"

"No way San; you don't get to do what we just did and then go shy on the compliments. You're amazing, and hot, and really beautiful, and if I want to tell you then I'm going to tell you, and…"

Her eyebrow has arched up just a little, and the corner of her lip looks like it wants to follow.

"That _was_ pretty amazing," she says, and she rolls her eyes, just tiny.

"No, that was _super_ amazing. Every time with you is super amazing."

She squirms, and you wrap your arm across her tighter; you bring her flush against you and warm against you and still a little wet against you. "You're definitely the best I ever had, Santana; like, if I still had a list, you'd more than top it."

You know your words are slipping away from the serious to play with the blasé, and that's all okay. You'll take the warmth of her eyes over words any day, and her eyes,

Her eyes you're sure are only for you. Like, you're all she wants to look at.

And, "I'd top it, huh?" she asks.

And you hear how her tone tickles happy, and you see cocky catch the corners of her grin. "Yes, San. You'd top it," you say, and you wait.

She grins higher; "I like being on top," she tells you.

"And I love you being on top. But…" you run your fingers across her skin, and under the sheet, and down to that dip past the curve of her hip, to the base of her spine, and a light touch and a feathered touch, and she hitches forward, she flinches slight. You smile. "…If you're always on top San, I wouldn't have found this really awesome ticklish spot…"

"I'm not ticklish."

"Uh-huh."

You ghost your fingertips there again and she bites her lip.

And you remember. You remember last night how you had her face down and desperate and how you were kissing all of the inches you were finding to love, and your hair had grazed across her skin there, and…

"I'm not, Britt."

"Of course you're not, Honey. You're far too tough to be ticklish."

"Right?"

"Totally," you say, with a semi-serious nod.

And she looks at you.

Again. Like she just keeps looking at you.

It paints the flush to your cheeks a little. It brings your own slice of shy to the table. It pushes you to push away just enough to mention something other than how god damned awesome you're sure that you are together. Because actions are better than words anyway, and you want to take action for her. You want to show her how happy you are that she's nestled in your bed on a Saturday morning, and how happy you are with the uses she makes for your bed, and just, how happy she makes you. All over.

Tip to toe. Inside and out.

You smile it; you make words about _wait here_, you make sounds about Lord Tubbington and how you need to go feed him. You say _coffee_. You tell her you'll bring her a cup.

And you bring more; like a feast you throw together in the time it takes for the coffee to run through to the jug. Nothing too fancy, you just scramble some eggs and toast some bread and get together a bowl of fresh fruit from the fridge. You grab one of the trays you use when you eat dinner on your lap in the front room, and you carry it all through to her. You present it to her; completely pleased with yourself and more than pleased with the delighted way she looks back at you.

Or the sweet way her voice softens when she says _thank you_. When she says _Brittany._

Your tummy still flips like the first time.

And she feeds you grapes from the bowl, she offers you her last slice of toast when she insists that she's full, and… Just. You really are in love with her. You really are. And when she looks at you, her eyes speak exactly the same.

Yet still. You wait.

Because you feel like, again, the edge of the ocean, and each wave that comes forth just carries you closer to her, and further with her, and you have forever for _I love you._

Because you're going to love her forever.

You smile it again. She scrunches her nose.

You poke out your tongue and she laughs at you. Like, you're silly in love. Crazy in love.

And, and, and…

Because you're sure you could stay in a forever exactly like this.

Yet you can't, or you can, but the scenery needs to shift some. You have plans today, you can't really just stay in this bed, or in this moment, contemplating how wonderful life would be if your universe was contained within these four walls. You have dance. And commitments to dancing. And it's almost a burden when she looks at you again. That way.

Like,

She'd take you again right now if you let her. You wouldn't even have to ask, or plead or convince her of your need… You'd just have to give her a glance, or tilt your head, or…

No.

You actually shake your head to clear the thought from your mind and the look from your face.

When she moves, you say, "Dancing…"

It drops her lips, just for a second, just as she remembers herself that these four walls don't quite contain you. "Right," she says, sighing on the memory, "I almost managed to forget we have to go out. What time do you have to be there?"

You tell her after lunch. You say to her that there are classes until then, and you and Mike need the space free to work out the stuff you need to be doing. It lights her eyes interested; she asks what it is you need to be doing, and you fill her in some. You explain how you helped the last two years with the choreography for the big Christmas show, you tell her how big a deal the big Christmas show actually is;

"Like, they hire out this _huge_ theatre, and all the parents come and people from the community, and they have the local papers there and… Well, it's pretty big."

She asks if you'll be dancing in the show. You sigh shy. You meet her eyes;

"Sure. That bit's not such a big deal though; Mike and I always take lead. We're the best."

You shrug it away, but you are. Actually. The best. You had a full scholarship to Julliard; you know how to dance.

She smiles at your words, and her tongue pokes out to lick at her lips.

"I bet you are," she says, and then;

"So who's Mike, again?"

Right.

Mike. Because you did wonder a little bit on this one. And you wondered it away to the back of your mind and you just kind of figured you'd dance your way across that bridge when you got there. Or here. Or,

"He's really cool," you tell her. "I've known him since I moved out here, and now he's one of my best friends. He and Tina work at MTV too… They're like, Sam, and me, but…"

And you see her eyes flick to the side. Like, she's hearing names in combinations that she's heard before. Like, last night, maybe, in passing past Rachel's segment of the show, or perhaps when you've spoken about work and…

"Mike and Tina," she says, kind of slowly, "aren't they the people on Berry's team?"

You nod. You watch her. She looks back at you.

And you can see the slight touch of confusion, the wary way one arm crosses across her body as she sits up a little straighter. She says _oh_, and that's all. And you know you have to _oh _her a little bit more before you can soothe the woe the _oh _causes. Because, you say;

"I kinda told him a bit about us. Like, I said…"

Yet you pause, because what you said to Mike, you're not about to say to Santana, and also, her eyes are still looking at you, only harder and; "What?"

"It's okay, I told you; he's one of my best friends, it's not a big deal, I jus-"

"Not a big deal?" she interrupts you, her voice striking flint, "are you _kidding_ me?"

You don't say anything straight away, and she pulls herself outside of your sheets and up from the bed. She doesn't stop to right the bowl she tips over, she just grabs her bag from the floor and stomps off to the en suite. And you lay back on a sigh.

More frustrated than anything, because you _know_ this shouldn't be a big deal. You know Mike, he really is a great friend, and if you ask him to say nothing, he'll say nothing. He's a good guy.

Yet, Santana doesn't know Mike.

She just knows he's connected to Rachel Berry.

You're pretty sure it's that exactly which has stomped her off to the bathroom, and you wonder how long you're supposed to give it before you go in there to settle the situation for her.

You blow your breath out between your lips. You pull your body up from the bed.

And the door opens.

She's clothed herself in trousers tight and black, with a grey top to match. She's pulled her hair up high into a ponytail, and her eyes, the eyes that haven't left you all morning, are now looking at everything in your room except for you. In her hand she holds her bag.

You look from it to her and back again.

Your first thought is that she's thinking of leaving. Your second thought is that she won't be. And for your third thought you stand from the bed. You tilt your head to the side and you soften your eyes to match the softness you feel for her, and;

"Santana," you say, and you wait until she looks at you. In fits and starts and with eyes that still wander. "I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have said anything to Mike without speaking to you first; but, he's my _friend_," you say again. "And I just…"

You shrug your shoulders and her head lifts a little. "…I wasn't thinking. I just told him I like you."

A lot.

You think.

You shrug again. You take a step closer; "And he really is a great guy. I trust him, San."

Her eyes hit yours and you watch her brow dip deeper, you watch her bite her lip.

You take another step closer.

When she drops the bag you smile just the slightest, yet she crosses her arms across her chest and cocks her hip out in a pose still defensive. You sigh. Softly.

You lift your hand and poke at her crossed arms, and, _San…_

You say, cajoling and cute and quite sure of your footing; "I'm _sorry_."

You tilt your head a little more and widen your eyes, and she looks and she looks, and;

"Okay, it's fine… it's…"

"It's not fine," you say. You lift your fingers again and pull at her crossed arms until you find a hand and she lets you hold it. And you do, between both of yours, and you squeeze light; "I just forget sometimes that not everything's perfect yet, and I shouldn't have said anything. Even if Mike won't repeat, which he won't…" Again you shrug your shoulder and you screw your face up with a little regret, and a side of sorrow, "…It's your place to decide who you want to know stuff. You're the one who's…"

You're not sure what to say. You don't want to mention closets or push the shade of labels across her shoulders, and so your words stumble silent, and your brow dips the same as hers. And you wait, just a little while, before she insists again that it's okay.

"It is?" you ask, chancing the start of a smile.

"Sure. I mean, I'm not ecstatic about it, Britt, I wish… I don't know. I don't even know this guy, and he's all Team Berry, and…" She looks down and she looks up. She looks at you; "…I'm used to looking for the angle. You might trust Mike, but no way I trust Rachel."

"But I thought you said she wouldn't say anything?"

"She won't; not about this. But…"

You watch her worrying at her lip. You ask; "San?"

"She just has this way of getting up in your life; or _my_ life. And… I don't even know if I want her in my life, Britt. I just. I don't want to deal with all this yet."

Your brow dips different because her words weren't the ones you expected to hear. Like, you know that Rachel's been pushed back into the periphery of Santana's life where before she was absent, and you know that each time you've talked about her, Santana's sides have softened slightly, but,

You pause curious. You save the sentiment, and you smile;

"Honestly, Rachel's got nothing to do with our dancing. She drives Mike crazy anyway; he's a lot more Team Chang than he is Team Berry."

When she looks at you still uncertain, you squeeze her hand again and you smile a little higher; "Trust me, okay? It's gonna be fun and you're really going to like Mike. He's a blast."

And she asks _yeah?_

And you confirm _yeah. _

And her gaze dips down to touch the floor.

…

You watched her eyes scour the floor a whole lot more before the time came to leave for the dance studio. Like, you know that she's okay with you. You really do regret with hindsight the way that your words flew so fast to Mike, and you told her that again - and she silenced your _sorry_ with a kiss.

A quick kiss. A sweep-these-things-to-the-side kiss.

And then she'd worried at her lip.

And you understand, you think, you really do.

Because… It's so easy to be easy when it's just you and her. It's always been easy to just _be_ with her. Yet; you know it's not easy for her to just be, not when the real world rears its ugly head and she's reminded again of what's outside and waiting.

Because it's only five weeks away from the election. Maybe a little more time until Quinn departs down the line to go back to Yale. And then;

You think maybe it feels like a ticking time bomb. Like a countdown to something scary and unknown. Because no matter how much she wants this, no matter how much you believe in her will to have this, you can imagine the trepidation of time passing. You can imagine why your unguarded words to Mike have served her with something of a wake-up call.

And she worries at her lips. Sometimes she twists her fingers together.

There's definitely tension hiding behind her tone, even as you poke and prod at her with your witty words and smiling faces, almost as if you've set her switch to wary, and no matter how much you say it'll all be okay, she's still keeping up her guards. She's still a little prickly.

You talk past it once you arrive at the studio. You chat super brief to Mike's cousin up on reception, and then you just start talking dance and its different expressions as you lead her off to the back room. And she follows your words; she knows a lot about styles and substance once you dig down into the conversation, and even if her flow isn't completely free-flowing, you still enjoy every minute of it. You like listening to her talk this way; you like that look in her eye when she forgets that this is the world she walked away from and you can hear how much she loves it still.

You smile. Again.

You lead her to a seat she can sit on, and then you drop yourself down on the floor in front of her and begin stretching your legs out. She watches you. You watch her.

Mike hasn't arrived yet, and you're still keen to ease her as much as possible before he does.

So you _really_ watch her. You spread your legs wide, you wiggle your eyebrows… You make a sound not really suited for a dance studio as you lean all the way forward to touch your fingers to your toes. Like the sound of a sigh that still wants sating.

A sound that makes her follow the line of your legs with her eyes.

It makes you wink up at her, it makes you maybe say something about _later_, and how you're probably going to be all tensed up from dancing… How you'll need a bath, and a back rub… and…

You trickle your words away.

You leave her with something sweet to think about as you stand and start working your way through all of your other stretches. Stretches that she measures with her eyes, and eyes that don't look half as wary when they're lost in making their measurements.

When Mike still hasn't arrived and you're all limber and loose for moving, you keep her gaze with easy steps and twirls, and with pirouettes made for ballerina girls; you slide in close on the tips of your toes, and when she smiles her smile, the one that creases her cheeks and deepens her dimples, you take a small curtsy in front in her. You dip and bow low and hold your hand out for her to dance too. With you.

And she looks, her head to the side and her eyes wide;

"You want me to dance?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Because I'm just here to watch."

She slips her smile to smug, as if that kind of argument would ever hold sway with you. You just raise your eyebrow and say _San…_

You maybe pout. You maybe say, "…Let me take you out for one quick spin; I'll be gentle, I promise." And maybe you say it in such a way as she can't refuse you, because you can see that she wants to, you witness the little fight her face has with itself as her expression tries to fashion an answer negative, yet;

"Really?" she asks, already shifting in her seat.

"Uh-huh. Just one dance."

"But there's no music."

"You could sing if you want to."

You smile wide and she rolls her eyes. She stands from her seat and takes the hand you're still holding out for her, and you bring her to you. And she looks at you.

Up at you.

"I told you I don't sing anymore."

Yet you've heard her sing. In more ways than one.

You don't call her on it though; you kind of don't really mind right now if she sings or not, because you have her in your arms, and you want to lead her for a moment in a different kind of dance. Because sure, you've danced with her before; you've done the kind of dances you're sure can only be choreographed by _angels_. But this kind of dancing... This is different. With its steps and its surety and its one foot in front of the other.

So you hold her.

Almost formally, as if you've stood before her in a glitzy ballroom and requested her hand the old fashioned way. Like, may I have this dance?

And she laughs a little when you take her through the first few steps. It's nothing fancy, it's only the opening toe tips to a gentle waltz, and even as she laughs at the way you lead her, she follows you with ease. She mirrors your steps; one, two, three.

"You've done this before," you comment into her ear as you turn her effortlessly about your arena.

"Maybe once or twice."

She breathes. You hold her a little closer.

You add in a twirl on your next turn, and you waltz her right away from the formal and into something a little more free-flowing. You spin her out from your body, you turn her under your arm, and then you spin her back in.

You catch her close.

And she breathes heavy. And you breathe heavier.

And,

Applause.

From the door.

And both of your heads turn.

It's a little later than expected, Mike, and although he's interrupted you on a moment, you slide your face all the way to the friendliest and you aim to make this meeting the easiest. You can feel Santana stiffening at your side, you can sense the tension sliding back across her shoulders, and you don't want that. She doesn't need that.

You lift your hand light and you place it soft to the base of her back, and you guide her, just gently, over towards the door. You talk the whole time; you do the _Mike - Santana_ and _Santana - Mike_ with gusto, and when you ask why he's late and he starts nattering about Tina, you go with it. You flow with it. You don't try and force Santana into the conversation, you just breeze easily with your words and you act as though this is all just normal.

Because in one way it is. It's just you, dancing with Mike, and Santana's come to watch.

It's no big deal. It's all just fun.

And if her eyes have hidden back behind caution, that's okay, because all she has to do is sit and watch you guys get your groove on; there's nothing to provoke any of the tension that holds her tight. It's all just fun.

And it's easy to remember that for a while.

You sit her back down again, she settles in the chair, and then you meet Mike in the middle of the dance floor. He's switched on the sound system; he's lined up your normal warm up rhythm and beats, and when he hips, you hop, and you lay out your swagger. Maybe just a little more than normal…

Like, maybe you make sure all of your locks are fixed tight and perfect, and when you pop, you really pop. You dance circles around Mike. You take each of his steps and give them back to him larger… You fully display what would've walked you across the stage of any worldwide dance hall to collect the praise and adulation of a thousand certain curtain calls.

You have it. Whatever that _it_ is; you have it.

And you know it. You show it. And you find all the fun.

When Mike comments that you're on fire, you cock your hip and fix a pose in thuggery, all full of attitude and… He laughs at you. Your face breaks into a grin wholly happy, and it's easy.

The ease only becomes less pleasing as you move towards what you're actually here for, because as much as you could dance all afternoon and into the evening with no direction other than the fun one you're taking, you are here for a reason. You find the smallest of frowns though, when Mike starts discussing again your early ideas. It's like this most times the studio puts on a production; his uncle is the man, and in his eyes, Mike is the man, and so.

You curtail the excitement of what you want to say.

You listen as he says again that his uncle is super keen on the classic approach to the Christmas show, and he says again that The Nutcracker is always a seasonal favourite, and he says again that the kids will all love it, and he says again that you'll be _awesome_ as the Sugarplum Fairy, and…

So.

You nod and you play about with choreography. You find the graceful arc to all of your steps as Mike leads you in a converted version of the classical dance. And yeah, it's fun. But…

It's _Christmas_, and like the last two years, you don't know why you can't just explode that notion across the stage. Because sure, The Nutcracker is brilliant and it'll go down lovely with the audience… But you want to _wow_ the audience. You want to take the nut and crack the nut and turn it into something amazing. Like…

You lose concentration as you think through the amazing and you slip on a step, and when Mike tries to twirl you, your foot stands wrong, and your shoulders aren't set, and it just…

Ugh.

You're frustrated and it shows and it dips Mike's eyes curious. Like, one minute you're Fred Astaire-ing it all across the floor, and now you slip on an easy step? He says _Britt_ like it's a question and you hold your hand up. You tell him you're taking two. You head across to Santana and her chair, and your bag at her side that holds your water bottle.

And she's looking at you, her eyebrow arched in concern.

She asks if you're okay. She asks softly.

And you smile for her.

You shrug your shoulder and you crouch down at her side. You let your smile slip just a little towards lopsided; "I just have a really great idea for the show, but…"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

You shrug again and she lifts her hand, as if she's going to wipe away the strand of hair that's sweat-stuck to your forehead. She pauses though, she looks across at Mike and she drops her hand down again. "So why don't you say something?" she asks.

And again, your shoulder lifts up and down.

"It's not my place to call the shots," you tell her quietly. "And it's cool… I _like_ The Nutcracker, I do, it's awesome, but…"

"I bet your idea is more awesome, Britt."

She says it so sincerely and you smile sincerely at her. You roll your eyes away as if to ask - _what can ya do_ - and you drink a mouthful of the water from your bottle. You wipe your arm across your lips. You wipe away the easy smile, and you turn again to Mike.

And again, you dance frustrated. Not in the way an outsider would even be able to tell the difference, but you can tell. You know that Mike can tell. It's just… It's like trying to put a cork back into the bottle marked creativity. Your body knows full well what it wants to be doing, and this classic yet kinda done-before dancing, isn't fitting the bill. So your body is rebelling by keeping your shoulders too tight and your lines too loose.

Your brain is rebelling by playing its own beat on a never-ending loop.

Like you can _hear_ it. You know how awesome it could be.

When you slip again, Mike sighs frustrated. He doesn't say anything, he would never say anything, he just fashions himself back into your starting spot and talks about taking the spin out altogether. "Maybe it'll be too much for the kids," he says, a little concerned. Yet you know it won't be; the kids here are all pretty talented and you know that you're confusing him.

"No," you say, finding the space at his side where you're meant to start from. "The spin's fine. I've got it."

"The spin's stupid…"

_She_ says it.

"…The whole thing's stupid."

She really says it.

And you stop. And you look. At her and then at Mike and then at her.

And,

You pause. You think your mouth might be hanging open a little.

Because not only are her words like a bolt from some blue, she also does nothing at all to soften them. They're like a bolt from the blue with venom attached. And you look at her, and your mouth hangs open. Like, you knew she was tense, and you know she's unsure of Mike due to the Rachel connection, but she's actually snarling at him…

Or sneering. Or something not at all nice.

He says, "What?"

His expression is one which sits confused. He's folded his arms defensive and he shoots you a look as if to ask what the heck's happening here. And really, you'd like to think of an easy manoeuvre to soothe the sudden storm, but you don't actually know what's happening here exactly.

You turn to Santana and she pulls herself up from her seat. She folds her arms the same as Mike and she smiles at him. Not nicely;

"I said," she begins, sharp and succinct, "that the whole thing is stupid. What are we, back in the 1950s still? Did you miss the whole modernist movement and get stuck doing ballet for beginners?"

"I… uh…"

"No, no, I get it." She unfolds her arms and waves one hand up and away as if she's got the perfect read on the situation; "You know you can't handle Britt's moves, so you're looking to keep it stale and outdated. Scared she might show you up, huh?"

Again she smiles, and you feel your cheeks flush. Not only embarrassed, because… This is Mike, one of your best friends and your favourite dance partner and…

But still. She looks kind of fierce fighting your corner.

Especially when you didn't even ask her to.

Like…

"Who are you again, exactly?"

Oh.

Mike says it. To Santana. And he's not smiling.

He looks once more to you for explanation, and you open your mouth to speak; to find some words to say that'll make the tension go away. You don't get the chance though, because Santana takes another step forward and her mouth is all up and running with the;

"Who am I?"

And god, if you didn't know, you'd want to.

You watch her raise her eyebrow a little, you watch the way she studies Mike before she continues on; "I thought you were all up in Berry's business..? I think you already know who I am."

There's all sorts of undercurrents tugging at her tone, and you think you catch all of them. You catch what lifted her from her seat originally… You get that this began as her misguided attempt at wanting to speak up for you. But now, and also… It's that tension again. That black cloud hanging over her head that's certain to burst at some point. It's Rachel and the real world and everything she's yet to deal with.

And you step up. You step towards her and you place a hand on her arm.

And _hey_ you say. Soft. Just to Santana.

"Mike's my _friend,_ San… Maybe you could…"

You want to say apologise. Or dial it down. Or _something_. Yet you trail off on the insinuation and she stands looking up into your eyes. You count ten. You glance back to Mike.

He's not looking at you pissed, so much as really confused. Like, he has Rachel's upshot of Santana, and you're sure he's aligning what he's seeing now with all of that, but also… He's your friend. And you told him _no_, you told him that Santana's the most awesome girl you ever met. Yet she's here, in front of him, not only questioning his dance moves and choreography in his own uncle's studio, but also dragging Rachel's name up when you know he would've avoided it all day, so as not to cause tensions.

He just looks really confused. You look back to Santana and raise your eyebrow.

And then,

"I'm sorry, okay, whatever… Forget I said anything," she huffs.

Only it's not really a _sorry_; you can hear it's not a sorry, and her face isn't saying sorry.

And Mike looks at her and back at you. He shrugs his shoulder and he lets it go. At least, he shoots Santana a look and he doesn't say more that would cause her to find answer. He just says _sure. _He looks at you again and you don't quite know what to do _or_ say.

The atmosphere is incredibly awkward. You can't imagine dancing more now.

So you call it. You say to Mike, to the room, to Santana, that maybe you should just leave it be for the day; "I'm not dancing well," you say, and you hear Santana huff again at your side. "Maybe tomorrow my head will be back in it…"

You know it's not ideal, you really don't have a huge amount of time to dedicate to the show this year and it's important that you get an early jump on it, and you know Mike was planning on a late session today before you meet again tomorrow, and.

You look at him with your softest eyes. You hope that they're saying sorry.

And he smiles. Really small. He looks again at Santana, and he shakes his head a little.

"No worries, Britt. We'll focus hard tomorrow. It's not a problem."

You think by the way he's looking at you, that he's asking you not to bring Santana again tomorrow, yet you're already sure that won't be a problem. You imagine you'd have to perhaps hogtie and carry her through the door if you tried to convince her to come here again, because you promised her fun, and really, there's not much in the way of fun in the room.

When Mike holds his fist out, you bump it gently, and he says a swift _goodbye_ to Santana before he turns back to the door. You expect he isn't really leaving; you expect he'll go hang with his uncle and his family until you've left, and then he'll come back and dance some more.

The thought makes you sigh.

You turn your head and you look at Santana, and her eyes are fixed back on the floor.

And beneath all of the fierce, you still see her fragile.

…

It's the kind of fragile that doesn't want to speak to you.

Like earlier in your room when she emerged from the en suite, she's keeping her eyes away from you and her posture defensive, yet unlike then, you can't reach to easily soften her edges. You're back in the car, heading from the studio to your apartment, and the most you can do is study her profile while she drives.

You see the muscle in her jaw working overtime. You count each and every instance that she bites at her lip. You don't count the times that she glances across at you, because she doesn't.

Not once.

And you wonder; angry?

You know agitated.

And _San,_

Just.

"Santana?" you say, because she's pulled up outside of your apartment, she's switched the engine to off, yet she isn't moving, and you more than sense the fact that she's not yet ready to remove herself from her seat. So you sit. And you study her. And you wait.

"I think I'm gonna go for a drive," are the words she eventually offers, and her jaw remains clenched and her eyes remain distant, and you remain seated.

"Okay," you say.

It turns her head. And,

She has no words, or she can't quite find them, so she stares.

"Where are we driving to?"

She stares harder.

You can see she wants to tell you to get out of the car, yet… More than that, you know that she won't. You know that she doesn't want you to. Or she needs you not to.

Because her eyes are still fragile, and you won't look away.

She does look away, yet you were right about her not asking, and even though she doesn't say words one way or the other, she does turn the key in the ignition again. She pulls back out onto the road, then back into the traffic, and you drive and you drive and you drive, until the city is but a distant memory left somewhere far behind you and all that's left in front of you is a bird's eye view of some small housing development, tacked on to the side of a town that looks smaller and less significant than even your old town.

Because you're back up on that hill and you remember this view.

And still she doesn't speak, and for now, you don't push her.

You're still sitting inside the car. The roof is up, and your windows are closed, and there's a privacy inside this moment that you don't wish to disturb. So you observe the view. You count all of the rooftops you can see, and you follow your eyes along all of the roads you can make out down below… And you can't help but wonder at her footsteps and where they fell. You can't help but wish that you walked beside her, and that you knew her then as you know her now.

You think you really would've liked to have known her then; away from LA and in this quiet place. You don't wonder if you would've loved her then; you don't question whether a twelve or thirteen or fourteen year old you would've melted so easily at her smile, and you don't stop to query how easily you would've smiled back. Because you know.

She already makes you feel as giddy as a teenager in love.

You bite your lip to curtail your smile some.

You turn your head to look at Santana.

And already she's looking at you. Her head tilted to the side. That look in her eye. The one you're sure you would have witnessed at twelve and thirteen and fourteen. And,

"Are you okay?" you ask, and you say _Santana. _

Yet still, for a moment she just looks at you.

And eventually, "I'm sorry, Brittany."

An honest sorry, and you tilt your head the same. You watch her blow out a long breath that serves as a long sigh, and you watch her eyes as they dart up and down and all around.

When she settles you say _okay. _You say more; "I don't get it though; you didn't need to go off on Mike… He really is a good guy."

She sighs again. "It was a little much, huh?"

"A little," you agree, biting your lip around your smile. "I don't think he really knew what was happening; you kinda came at him from out of nowhere."

"He wouldn't let you dance."

"We were dancing."

"You know what I mean."

And you do. She drops her eyes and you reach your hand out. Or you walk your fingertips across the centre console until you can prod at her hand with your finger. "I like that you were sticking up for me though," you tell her, soft enough to lift her gaze, "it felt nice to have you fighting my corner, even if there wasn't really a fight to be had."

She looks down at your fingertips tickling her skin, and she opens her hand out for you to hold. She doesn't answer you though; she worries at her lip again, and she sits back in her seat in such a way that makes you think of slumping. And _hey_, you say;

"I miss you smiling."

Because you do. Because sure, she always smiles at you, but really, throughout this day, there's been a side and a hint of something sadder, something that dips her lips on the lift, something that stops her eyes fully lighting. And she looks at you, and she smiles, just a little.

She takes another long breath in before slowly releasing it, and then she speaks, her voice quiet and flirting soft with forlorn; "I think I'm just in a bad mood. I just…"

"You just?"

"Normally I'd be out of it by now. I'm just not used to all these _feelings…_"

And she sounds more forlorn. Yet, so cute. So…

"Feelings?" you ask her.

You feel her fingers flex and you drop your glance to your hands. You rub your thumb lightly across her skin. You smile up at her; "What kind of feelings?"

"Lots of feelings."

"Okay, like… bad feelings?"

And she widens her eyes. Not surprised, but almost pleading, like, her words are oh so wary of being spoken, but she wants so much to speak them. And you wish you could find them for her, you wish you could reach in and find all of her fears and feelings and hold them and mold them into words which come easy.

You squeeze her hand. She squeezes back.

She looks away from you to stare out of the window, and she hits her note on a monotone; "I don't know Britt… I just feel like; like everything I've been running away from is finally catching up to me, and I…" She sighs frustrated, and she takes her hand from yours. She fits it back to the steering wheel and you can see the clench. "…I'm scared Britt, okay? I'm still just _scared_."

And you love her so much.

And you breathe so deep.

You don't find words and you don't reach out your hand to find her again. You do different, you do what feels right. You turn the other way and you reach down to the handle on the door; you look back at her… she's looking at you; "I'm gonna sit outside for a bit," you tell her, and she nods her head soft.

It's not dark out yet, it's barely started touching dusk, and you settle yourself down on the hood of the car like that time all those weeks ago, and you count the streetlights below as they switch from off to on. They take the east side of town first, yet within minutes the streets are all marked out by the row upon row of soft shining lights. And it's pretty. And you take a moment to just breathe in the air. And you wait all of the moments until she meets you.

You hear her door open and close. You feel her at your side.

And _hey_, you say once again.

Yet she's gone back to just watching you. Like the start of your morning, like when you touched and trembled together and then, after, and then, all day. And there's a reverence in her gaze. And you think, maybe, because she let you love her, and now… You love her _so_ much, and maybe that's a really big feeling for her to touch upon. A scary feeling.

Because she asks you;

"Did you mean what you said?"

And you don't know the frame for her words, but you hear her voice shake uncertain on the question. "About… _falling_," she continues, "you said…"

"I'm falling fast?"

And her eyes drop, and her frown deepens. "You said you haven't, before, and…"

Oh. Right.

Because you've never fallen in love before. Not even a little bit.

You can't help the shy smile that tickles your lips, you can't help but blush your cheeks with a little heat when your thoughts fall in line with your feelings, and;

"I haven't Santana, I really haven't."

And she stares, and she softens, and she asks;

"Doesn't that scare you?"

"Scare me?"

You tilt your head to the side to consider, you flip through your feelings as if they were pages in a Filofax you can easily read from. And sure, fear, a little, but… "I'm not scared of falling for you," you tell her, reversing all of the words, "because I know that you'll catch me."

Because you do know. You're sure. Yet it dips her eyes again.

You see her fragile and you edge closer to her side.

"What if I don't though, Britt?" she says. "What if I _can't_?"

"What if you already have?"

She looks at you like she wants to believe you, yet she speaks more fear. She looks down to the streets below. She says; "I bet everyone who ever fell in love thought it was forever. It's not though, is it?"

She asks. And you ponder.

You could just say that you'll love her forever. You could say that you just _know_. Only, you don't think that's what she's looking for here. You think she's sought this space to sight her fears, and you think maybe now she needs help in speaking them.

And, "Not always," you whisper, because it is a scary truth even if it's not your own. "I guess sometimes other stuff gets in the way and people forget."

She drags her eyes off to the west and you wonder if that was her way. If her history is over there and she's seeing and remembering and reliving a time when love wasn't enough.

Her words confirm your instincts. She says _my mom_, she stops and she starts;

"…My mom said she thought it was forever. She never would've married again, you know? Not just because of the Catholic thing, but… She really believed in it. In _love."_

"Your mom sounds kind of awesome."

"My mom was amazing."

And you edge closer still. You find her hand again and you find her shoulder with your head. You close your mouth down on the trite, you don't say, _you miss her, huh?_

You just sit with her while she orders thoughts. You do say;

"I wish I could've met her."

And she says, "Me too."

"…She really would've liked you Britt. You would've really liked her."

"Do you think," you begin to ask, quiet and curious, "that she would've liked…"

"Us?"

"Yeah," you say.

She turns her head down to look at you. She smiles. So, so, soft. "Yeah," she whispers back, "I think so."

And you have to. You can't help but reach your lips to kiss her.

Fragile and beautiful and simply the best.

She is, you think, with your mouth pressed to hers. You lift your hand to touch her face closer to you and you deepen the kiss. Not with passion, not to stoke a different feeling and drive away this moment, just…

You _love_ her. And you're so glad, so happy, that even if her mom isn't here anymore, even if she resides somewhere off in that land of Oz, Santana thinks that she'd like you. That'd she'd like you and Santana. Together.

And you kiss that happy into her. You break away with a smile.

Shy again. Bashful before her.

And _Santana_… you say. And you don't say the words in between, but you do say, or sigh, "…if you only knew how much…"

Because it's so big. And she smiles. And she confirms, "So much."

Not so scared. Not for this moment.

And _yeah, _you ask.

She nods. She keeps looking straight into your eyes and she says; "Yeah, Britt. The most."

…

The most.

She loves you.

And even with the fear that nudges in from the outside, your insides dance and they prance and they smile delighted when she speaks it to you. You think perhaps it's the shyest you've ever felt, and you think for sure that your cheeks have never felt this rosy and that your heart has never pounded so loud.

Because you're so close to everything, and her everything is perfect.

And _me too_ you say. And still she looks.

With her lip bitten and her dimples deepening, she looks.

Long and hard, yet soft and sure.

Sure enough to find more words. Different words, just… You and her, on top of this hill, and still just getting to know each other. Because she tells you what it was like down there; she takes your hand and guides it in the direction of her old street, before pointing out the old route to her school. She tells you about the routines of her other life, and how her and her mom were like a team full of awesome;

"We didn't have much Britt, but for a while it was like we had everything."

She says. And they're words which you file away.

You file away a lot of her words as she's speaking. You place them into all of the spaces you weren't sure of before, and you paint your picture clearer. You paint your picture prettier; because all of the words she uses are pretty words. And happy ones.

And you forget all the fears.

You listen to her until the breeze blows chilly and even the way her arm is wrapped around your waist isn't enough to quite keep you warm. You don't have a jacket or much of a jumper. You didn't dress for unexpected excursions. So you shiver, a little, and she pulls you closer to her side. You nestle in; she breathes out.

"You ready to get going?" she asks, but it wasn't you who needed to be here.

"Are you?" you say, you ask instead.

She doesn't answer, yet you feel her shrug, and then she moves by your side. She slides herself down from the hood of the car and she tugs on your hand to pull you with her. She eventually says _sure. _She says that she's hungry and that she wants to go home.

And you drive and you drive and you drive; down from the hill and back into the city.

Home.

….

You think it.

Because it feels like the only home you'll ever need when you're sat behind her in the bath again, and your legs are wrapped around her, and her head is resting on your chest. She has her hair piled up in a messy bun, and it keeps tickling your nose, but you don't shift. You don't move. You keep your arms warm around her and her skin pressed tight against your own; and you rest.

Already she's washed your hair.

She insisted on the quid to pro your quo. She said _let me_, and you couldn't refuse. You wouldn't refuse. Because her hands in your hair are like her hands everywhere and her hands are beyond the realms of perfection. So you let her. You sat silent through her gentle ministrations and when she finished you turned your positions and you pulled her close.

And you rest with her.

It's been a strange kind of day. It started the best way, and it's ending the best way, yet the bits in between have strained and stretched and tweaked at tension. Hers mostly, yet; she's not so tense now. She's quiet and she's in your arms and her hair keeps tickling at your nose.

When she hums you hug tighter.

And _Britt…_she says, drawing it out, slow and relaxed.

"Uh-huh?"

"…Tell me about your ideas for the show?"

She asks. Like,

"Really?"

"Yeah, I wanna hear them."

You know she's not talking about your ideas for your TV show, and you pause for a minute, because… You're not as sure here. Like, your show's a hit, Fondue for Two is a definite chart topper, but…

You know the idea sounds awesome to you, you just.

"Britt," she says again. And you just,

"Okay," you say. And your voice starts off a little uncertain, but you do tell her. You tell her the beginnings of the idea you had as soon as you knew that Mike's uncle was hedging towards doing the Nutcracker again. Because you've got so much more than ballet in your repertoire and you talk to her about how much you love dancing to a different beat… You catch her up in your excitement, you shift and you sit more and she turns her head to watch your words.

She adds words.

She says _awesome_, she says _genius_, she says;

"That's _brilliant_, Brittany…"

And she looks at you. God how she looks at you.

Again.

And she kisses you.

She takes your ideas and she weaves them pretty with threads of her own thoughts; like, she _gets_ it. Like she's seeing what you can see and she can see how awesome it would be.

It ends your bath, because she bounces excitement.

She doesn't stop to trail her eyes down across you naked when she wraps you in a towel, she just grabs your hand and leads you chattering to the bedroom. She throws a t-shirt at you - she _throws_ it - and then she bounces up onto the bed.

Still awash with chatter. Still going a mile to the minute with her observations on your excellence and just how great this all could be;

"Seriously, Britt," she says, her eyes alight, "you could so totally do this. It'll blow everyone away… Honestly, it's just…"

And you just…

…Look at her.

The kind of look that causes silence.

The kind of look that does drift her eyes down to the body you haven't yet covered.

You drop the t-shirt from your hand.

You walk towards her.

"Do you know what I think?" you say, and her eyes drag upwards.

She shakes her head. She looks at you.

"I think you should help me."

"Help you?" she whispers, or she wants, and she shifts forward on the bed.

Her hands reach out and gently touch you. They grace a trace across your stomach.

And you breathe. Deep. Because you know the way she wants to help you.

You definitely want her help.

And _yeah_ you say, and she pulls you closer.

Her lips touch your skin; you feel her tongue take a taste from your navel. And her hands, they slide upwards, her fingers curve to carry the weight of your breasts.

You arch into her.

And _Santana,_ you sigh, and she holds you helpless.

And again you fall fast to her touch.

…


	21. Almost Perfect

If you thought your Sunday morning would wake you the same as your morning previous, then you're really sadly mistaken. Or maybe not so sadly, just really mistaken. There's no minutes taken here for you to gaze in adoration at a sleeping Santana, there's no slow-waking, love-making to slip you soft into your day. No: because for all of the help that Santana gave you last night, this morning it seems she wants to help you even more. Just now not with her tongue to your navel nor her hands on your breasts.

You are woken by her lips still, but not with kisses…

Words.

You hear. Wide awake words or words about waking.

When you peek out at her through your heavy eyelids, she's hovering above you and she brings her weight slowly down across your hips. She lowers her face closer and you squint up into her smile; "Time to get up, Britt-Britt," she singsongs soft, and you squeeze your eyes back closed and, _Britt… _Again.

You sigh. Or you stretch. And her weight is across your hips.

It persuades your eyes to open properly, because you really do like the view of her on top, straddling your thighs, her eyes wide and watching and her lips smiling sweet. She kisses you. Once, quick, and away she goes again. She pulls herself off of you and she pulls back the sheet;

"Coffee's on," she states loud, almost merrily, and she walks from the room without looking back.

You lay back.

You're not sure why she's up and dressed already. You really are kind of tired.

You do convince yourself to lift though when you hear her call your name from the kitchen. You do throw some semblance of clothes on and grab a pair of socks for your feet. And you stumble, kind of zombie-like through a walk, all the way to the breakfast bar where you find her waiting for you; her smile still dazzling the day, and with two mugs of coffee steaming before her on the side. You smile back, lazy, slow, and all full of Sunday. Your eyes drift to the clock on the cooker… And,

"San!" you say, your morning voice rising. Because it's 8am. In the morning. Of course. But still; "Why" you ask, "are we up already? Why are we up at all?"

You know your eyebrows are meeting in the middle, and you know your face is probably a pretty curious mix of sleep and confusion, but she keeps her steady smile aimed at you. She lifts her shoulder up and then down and she tells you;

"We've got work to do."

"We do?"

"Sure we do, Britt. If you want Mike to listen to you later, we need to be prepared…" She reaches down and picks up her cup, and you watch her silent as she takes a sip of her coffee. You just look at her. She looks back at you, and quietly, she adds; "…I thought I could help."

And you feel it. The kind of smile that starts somewhere down in your tummy before squeezing up past your heart and then out onto your lips. Your cheeks rise high and your nose scrunches tight, and;

"Yeah?" you ask, "For real?"

Because you want her to help you. You had so much fun last night with your ideas and her ideas and those ideas wrapped together, and so much, you want to have more of that kind of fun with her. You lean forward in your seat, and you wait for her to answer. You watch her bite at her lip, you watch the way her lips won't stop lifting beyond the bite.

"Sure," she eventually says, "I mean, I don't know how much help I'll be, but we can at least get a track together so you've got something to show Mike later. It can't hurt, right?"

You say _track, _and she instantly replies with words about her MacBook Pro_. _She tells you she's got the most awesome music editing software. She tells you sometimes she likes to play around with that stuff, just to keep busy, just because;

"I'm not into music the same way as my mom," she says, "but I've still got an ear for it. I can probably put something together on the fly."

You don't hold up your hand and tell her you've probably got the same editing software on your own laptop. You don't say that you've been mixing music together to dance to since you were first able to turn on a computer. You don't say - _hey, I work for MTV_. You don't say anything. You feel that same smile forming again on your lips, and you dip your head and pick up your coffee. You take a moment. Just a second.

"That's really awesome, Santana," you eventually do say, and really, it is.

Awesome.

She doesn't let you rest on it though; she smiles like you, and then, again, like last night, she begins to buzz around her words. She pulls you up from the stool and tells you to hurry with a shower and she says she'll make you breakfast while you're gone.

She says a lot. She says;

"We need to go pick up my Mac."

It pauses you on your walk to the door. You turn on her words and you lift your brow curious. "From your house?" you ask her.

She says _sure. _

"My dad and abuela are at that conference, and half the staff will be at church anyway…"

You say _okay, _yet still you pause. And she ushers you off towards the bathroom.

…

She pretty much doesn't stop ushering you on through the morning. She hurries you in and then out of the shower, she rushes you fast through eggs and two bacon, and then she taps her foot on the floor while she waits for you to pick an outfit to dress in.

And really, you never knew how much you'd like this _bossy_ side you're seeing.

Like,

In control. Or take charge. Or, "…I'm coming back to the dance studio with you later…" she announces, once you're out on the road and driving to her house. It turns your head further in her direction. It lifts your eyebrow once more in question.

"…Seriously, if Mike thinks you're gonna twirl all pretty by his side just so he can look like some badass ballerina boy, he's got one hell of a wake up call coming."

"San…" you say. Yet;

"No, Britt. We're gonna get this track together, firm up your plans, and then he's gonna damn well listen to you. Your ideas are brilliant; he needs to step back and recognise."

"And _you_ need to be nice," you counter, when she flicks her gaze your way from the traffic, yet she just rolls her eyes, and you feel the need to say more; "I want your help, I really do, and it's gonna be all sorts of amazing working together. But, they're still my friends; Mike isn't part of some sinister plot to keep me swaying slowly in the background. I am still dancing the lead."

Because you are. And she looks back at you.

She shrugs her shoulder.

"I mean it San; if you can't play nice then you probably shouldn't play at all."

"If he doesn't listen to y-"

"You're not listening to _me_, though."

You say it and you smile, and she flicks her attention back to the road.

You watch her fingers drumming on the steering wheel. You watch the way her jaw grips tight at the side and still you smile at her. Because, this - all of this worry is for you. And sure, she doesn't need to worry, she doesn't need to be driving you across town before 9am on a Sunday morning to make a track for you to dance to, the whole time stressing about whether you'll be allowed to even dance to the track… Yet she is.

And you nudge your fingers slow in the direction of the centre console. You lay your hand down and you turn your palm up and you keep your eyes ahead for the moment. You only look at her again when her hand has fitted tight to yours. And _hey,_ you softly say; "I really do appreciate all of this, okay?"

And you look, and she looks. And, "Okay."

She speaks her word softly too, she squeezes her hand gently against yours and then she falls silent as you drive through roads and streets and up into the hills. Not the hills of her former home, but the hills that lead to her current one. You stay silent also. Your eyes are widened to the opulence around you, and you watch as gates go by and houses rise high in the distance. When you pass one turning, she tells you that's Quinn's parent's house down there, and you think maybe you recognise the route. Another turn and she tells you that the Berry mansion is just down that way. And then she slows. She opens her window to lean out and punch her fingers against a keypad in front of a large set of gilded gates, and,

"Home sweet home," she states.

She takes her hand out of yours and she sets them both on the wheel, and you watch her teeth grind tight as she creeps the car up the driveway. You don't even look to see how high or how grand her house is; you just watch Santana. Because, like this morning when she first told you that you were coming here, you wonder slightly at her _why_.

You know to get her computer.

Yet, she could have done that on her own. And you think maybe she just wanted to bring you here. Maybe she wanted to show you something more of herself.

So you watch her.

She doesn't dash around to get your door when she brings the car to a stop, she just sighs, mostly to herself, and she tells you that you shouldn't really see anyone inside, so not to worry.

"I'm not worried," you say, and she smiles at you tightly, like a grim set line of not quite sure.

When she exits the car, you follow her, and when you stand at her side, you do look up. And around. And she really wasn't joking when she told you about her privilege.

The house is huge. The house is incredibly imposing.

And you're not worried.

You just focus on Santana's words and you follow her footsteps forward. She's telling you that a lot of the work was done after she left;

"…We were pretty well off anyway, but once he _really_ hooked up with Fabray…"

She shrugs her shoulder and points off to a building to her right, separate from the main house, and set back into some flora and ferns and surrounded by trees. "That was mom's studio when I was a kid; I used to love it in there."

"What is it now?"

"A garage."

She turns her nose up a little and then she turns towards the main door to the house. It's not locked and she doesn't need to use a key, and when she holds it open for you, you take your first couple of steps inside… And you're not sure what you expected; you never really spent that much time imagining what the walls of Santana's hardship might look like, but if you had imagined, you don't think you would've have imagined this. Or maybe you would have, because the opulence is obvious, yet so is the austerity. It's there in that giant cross looming above you both on the wall, it's there in the printed painted pictures of the saints as Santana leads you further inside the entrance hall. There's a hush, a silence, like the inside of a large tomb, and you can't help that the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention.

You're not scared, as such. Santana's family isn't even here.

But still…

And the stillness bothers you. The lack of life. The emptiness, perhaps.

There's just something, and although you know you can't reach out to search for Santana's hand, you do step a little closer to her, and you walk tight to her side when she leads you further into the house. She points off down the large hallway and she tells you the main rooms are that way, and then she detours down another corridor to a large set of stairs, and then she leads you upwards. Not one set of stairs, but two sets, and when you get to the top of the house she tells you;

"These are my rooms."

Not, this is my room. _These_ are my rooms.

She doesn't open all of the doors to show you what all of her rooms mean exactly, she just leads you a little further along until she stops, and then - she pauses. She takes one second to catch your eye before she turns the door handle, and you swear that she looks nervous. Like, for all of the lack of concern she showed when she entered you in downstairs, before this door she looks like maybe she is concerned. Like she cares.

And you nudge her. Just gently. Just your shoulder into hers. Just enough to glance her eyes to yours. And you smile for her. A small smile sent to encourage her hand to turn the handle, and to remind her that all of your smiles are for her alone, and not for the walls surrounding.

"This is it," she says, with still the tiniest hint of hesitation. And she opens the door, and she steps inside, and then she turns for you to follow her. So you do.

And, "Wow," you say. Because _wow_. It's dark and broody, sure, just like she said it would be, but… _wow, _becauseit's huge. The room and the furnishings. To your right is a black-blinded window that takes nearly the length of the whole wall, and beneath that, a chaise-lounge or a love seat, or…

"It's nothing special," she insists, stepping to the side of you and closing her door shut tight. "I spend all my time in here so I have everything I need, but…"

She trails off and you take in everything she needs. You register the large plasma screened TV bigger than the one in your local sports bar, you note the sound system that sprawls almost from the floor to ceiling, you note the bookcase and the books and the CD rack with all of the CDs and the desk with the Mac and,

She touches you.

She grounds you back in that space next to hers; her hand to your back, leading you towards her desk. "I probably have everything we need in my files already, but if you fire her up, you can let me know if there's anything else you want…" She leans across you and opens the lid to her MacBook, and then she pulls the seat out at her desk for you to sit; "…I'm just gonna…"

She points to a door at the far end of the room, and you nod.

You don't look back down at the laptop, you look at her. You watch her fidget her hands in front of herself, and you watch the deep breath she takes in as she turns away from you. And still you don't look down at the laptop. Your eyes follow her down to the far end of her room and you sight the scenery there to build a fuller picture. You note the enormous bed; you push your eyes past it. You note the large dresser topped with lotions and potions and perfumes galore, and you note the mirror.

Not full of reflections, but full of photos.

And you stand.

You walk, like you're following a thread. Or, following a thought that leads you to touch your fingers to pictures and trace pieces of her past. Or present, or…

Quinn, and her, and Quinn. Mostly.

Pictures that smile pretty.

You see her in her graduation gown and you see her pulling her prom face and…

Her and Quinn, and Quinn and her.

Like little titbits and moments and places not so painful. To you, it just looks like two girls. Like, one really, really beautiful girl and her also pretty best friend. And your eyes journey around the mirror, and they land with a smile to the right. Because,

You remember adding the flourish of three kisses to the end of your signature. You remember the day she fake fangirled in front of you, nothing other than friendly, and you remember giving her your autographed card with Lord Tubbington's face. You remember.

And again, she touches you.

Her hand to your side, and; "I thought you were meant to be working?"

Only she doesn't sound accusatory and you don't wipe away the grin when you turn your head to look at her; "I got distracted," you say. "You take a really good picture Santana."

She drops her eyes from yours, and she lifts them up on the photos. "Yeah. We've had some fun times."

And she shrugs. She drops her eyes again and she pulls you tight into her side before she turns you away from the dresser and leads you back over to the desk. She sits you down and then she reaches across you to pick up a pair of glasses from next to the laptop; and honestly, you have no hope of denying the smile, or the whispered _cute_ that falls fast from your lips.

You want to turn and look at her. You really want to see her eyes framed and pretty and forget for the moment about work and dancing. Yet she stands flush behind you before you can move, her head almost on your shoulder and her arms reaching around you to tap quickly at the keys to the computer. She speaks soft into your ear.

"I was thinking, what if…"

And then, wizardry.

Like, maybe her glasses have allowed her to see inside your head or hear inside your thoughts, because the first sounds she strings together once she's opened up the editing programme and begun tracking down beats, are the same sounds you hear when you cast your glance forward to the future show. When your ear does hear a discrepancy, you simply shift her fingers with yours to take control of the keys, either upping the tempo or heightening the bass, and…

You make a great team, you think.

You smile, maybe even laugh a little, when she nudges you aside to regain control for a moment; "I don't have the sound file for The Nutcracker," she says, her tone tipping towards apologetic, "but we can download it now and,"

You nudge her back.

"How do you not have The Nutcracker, Santana? That's like, a crime against ballet."

"Don't judge me, but I'm not actually a huge fan of the ballet."

"Don't judge you? You can't make that kind of outrageous statement and not expect to be judged."

She laughs lightly and then her lips are even closer to your ear and her tone drops down to that place that tickles; "I like when you dance ballet," she says, and it makes you breathe in really deep. It also makes you turn the chair that swivels until you're looking up at her, her arms still resting either side of you;

"I like when you wear glasses," you reply.

She pulls back. She brings her hands up to rest on your shoulders, and she scrunches her nose up a little; "I hate wearing them," she pouts.

"But they're cute," you tell her, "totally hot."

"How can they be cute _and_ hot?"

She arches her eyebrow as if she really wants your answers, and you smile your consideration. "Well," you begin, "cute, because they make you look completely _adorable_. And hot because…" You lift your hand to her shirt and you pull her down until she's close enough to touch lips, "…Every single thing about you is hot. I think the glasses just magnify that."

She smiles against you, but again she pulls away and your lips are left without a kiss.

She says _we have work_. You tug more at her shirt. You bite your lip.

She pulls further away and it's your turn to pout.

When she rolls her eyes and stands up straight, you blow the breath out from your lips frustrated and you turn back towards the computer. You say _fine_. You mumble something about there really being no point to magnifying her hotness if you're not allowed to sample it, but she only laughs in your ear and urges you back towards work, and once she's successfully downloaded the classic Nutcracker tune, she moves her hands aside to let you play about with the mixing process. And it's all easy, and it's fun.

You drop all of the bass soaked beats you were playing with before over the tinkled out tones of the Nutcracker, and it doesn't take long for you to be listening to the tune you've been hearing in your head for the last few weeks. It's not perfect, it's definitely put together on the fly, and you can hear already the different ways you want to polish it up, but for now it's perfect. It means you can go back to the studio later, armed not only with an idea, but with something solid to sway Mike with, because you're sure, if you can just get him to listen and imagine and envision how awesome it all could be, then he'll see it your way. He'll maybe talk to his uncle. There's a chance, you think, at least, and that's more than you hoped for yesterday.

It eases your fingers on the keys.

It moves her hands to your shoulders when you stretch your neck either way and tilt your head to the sides; and you're not tense nor tired, but… It's nice to feel her hands on you. It's even nicer when she urges your muscles to loosen beneath her touch and she pulls you back against her.

And you lean back. You rest your head against her chest and she drops a swift kiss down to tickle your forehead. "Are we done?" she asks, and you feel your smile find an answer before you give her the word.

"Yep."

"And do you think it'll be enough, because we still have time, right? We could sketch some ideas out; stage directions or…" You lift your hands up to cover hers and she trails off her words into silence. You tilt your head back further and you find her upside down with your eyes;

"Can you kiss me now, Santana?"

"Kiss you?"

"Sure. Like, put your lips on mine, and kiss me."

You can't see her face clearly from your angle, but you note the head twitch in the direction of the door. You hear the pause and you seek to fill it;

"A quick kiss," you say, "really quick."

She looks down at you and she pulls her hands out from beneath yours. She traces them up your neck until she cups your chin, and she tilts your head a little further back towards her. And it's not the best of directions for a kiss, but she finds your lips regardless and you sigh and you smile and she kisses you quickly. And you turn. Beneath her touch, you swivel the chair again, and you face her; with her quick kisses and her eyes behind her glasses and her furtive floor to door glances and,

"Hey," you say.

And _hi_, like a whisper, she pushes past her lips. Her left hand she lifts to push at her glasses, and you smile, and you lift up your right hand. You catch at her t-shirt again and you pull her a little bit closer. Just a touch, like, her legs between yours and, _hey_, again you say.

She looks to your lips and she bites her own.

You tug her t-shirt.

"There's no one here, San," you tell her, when her eyes are right in front of yours, "it's just you and me, right? You're safe to kiss me."

You feel the resistance in her tug back. She tugs tighter and you let go.

"Not here," she insists. "Just… Not here, Britt."

You see her bristle beneath her own words and you don't offer an answer. You lean your head the slightest angle to the left and she speaks again; "It feels weird, okay? It's just…"

"Weird?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

You spin the chair a little when she walks across the room, and when she sits on the edge of her bed, you stand. You walk some of the distance over to her and then you lean against the dresser. You give her space to sigh, and again she speaks to you;

"I've never, here… Like, I haven't, ever…"

"Not even wit-"

"No," she interjects before you can finish, and her eyes flick past you to the mirror behind you. To the pictures behind you. "I told you, Britt, it wasn't like that with her. With Quinn. It was never about sleepovers that went astray; and _god_," she says, her eyes once more finding the route to the door, "if we'd done that _here_…"

You imagine her imaginings and you push away from the dresser. You take a slow step towards her, one and then two. And, "So," you say, when you stand before her, "you've never had a girl in your bedroom before, huh?"

Her head shakes. Maybe her hand shakes when she lifts it again to fiddle with her glasses. And she breathes, really deep. "We did our homework in the study. My abuela…"

She stops.

You start.

"Your abuela obviously cared a lot about your education..."

She looks at you. Up to you. And you smile, easy for her, because you don't ever want to make anything harder for her.

"…But not as much as I do, Santana," you continue. "And even though we haven't named it an assignment, you've so aced everything today; like, you've tipped _all _of my scales so far past awesome."

"I have?" she asks.

You bend your knees until you're resting down in front of her, and you nod your head. Slowly and surely, you confirm it for her. "Absolutely aced it. Like, if I could tell you…" You say, because you so want to tell her; you want to tell her everything. And she looks and she looks at you, and you meet each moment of her gaze, and then she says to you,

"Tell me."

Or she whispers. Or,

"Tell you..?"

Because you're not sure at all if she understands what the telling entails. Like maybe she expects more words on awesome, or maybe she expects you to reiterate again the ways she's aced the day, yet;

"Britt, please…"

She implores, in a tone that hints at something so incredibly heartfelt. And she's so close, in this place of all her deepest fears. And you're so close, and, just…

"I love you Santana," you say. You hold her eyes with yours and you say it like it's the easiest thing you've ever had the pleasure of declaring, and, "I _love_ you, okay?"

You say.

And she forgets, or she remembers, and she's the bravest girl in the world,

Because she kisses you.

In her tower. Like, she takes back her power.

Unsteady at first.

Her breaths, before her lips touch yours. She whispers _okay_.

And you love her.

And she knows it.

And she kisses you.

…

She kisses you more than once. At first it's that tentative shaky breath that pulls you close; it's her so soft _okay_ that carries your lips her way, yet, beneath her breath there's something less shaky, something solid with intent as she slides herself back on her bed and she brings you with her; her hands grabby as they pull your loose vest up towards your shoulders, her lips more insistent than just the moment before.

And…

_Okay._

You let her lead you. You smile when she yanks at her glasses and tosses them to the side, because you can feel the urgency churning inside her and you understand so bad her rising need. Because for you it sits different. In this moment you just need her to believe, and if her belief wants to assert itself with a display of touched affirmation, then you're here to be touched. Behind this door where no girl's gone before, you want her to conquer all of her fears. For just a moment,

For this minute where she's marking herself invincible. You want her.

And she pulls you down.

She rolls you over. And there's no time to pause and gloat and declare herself yet again on top, because her eyes flick quick, once, to the shut tight door, and you're sure this is going to be fast. And the thought lifts your hips towards her. And her lips hit your lips with a crash of determination, and her hand hits your zip without fumble or forethought, just… _fast_.

She pushes past the top of your panties. Her fingers already nimble enough to know how to touch you, how to circle that spot which strokes a rhythm, which makes you moan into her mouth and slide your legs wider. When she rips her lips from yours, you offer your neck on instinct, and she sucks at your skin, hard and insistent, her teeth nip at you. Her free hand she teases rough to your breast, palm first and then fingers,

She lingers to pinch you through the fabric of underwear. And the friction scratches, and she matches her touch across your chest, she lowers her head, or her lips and you feel the bite through the lace of your bra. You feel…

Her fingers below, speeding your beat. Spreading your heat. Because she's making you so fucking hot for her right now, and when her touch traces down between your lips, you feel the slip and the slide of how wet you are for her. She says it.

Her body shifting to lift her words back to your ear, she says;

_You're so fucking wet, Britt…_

Or, _so fucking sexy_,

Or hot.

It is. Or even more so when she asks you, from that place on top,

"…Tell me what you want, Britt…"

And you hear it, you loud and clear it. Exactly what she wants from you and needs from you right now; that pleading beneath the command in her tone, the way she waits for your own _okay_,

So you say,

"I _want_ you, San…" But more,

Because your hands grab at her too, and you pull her ear to your lips and your voice asserts its own need, or her need, because, "…I _want_ you to _fuck_ me, really hard and really fast,"

You say,

"…I want you to make me come for you…"

Because you do, right here on this bed where no girl's ever come before.

And it's primal, or primitive, the need that thought feeds in you. Like a sudden hunger or a desperate desire to have her inside you. To be crowned her first in front of those eyes on the mirror, to be declared her _difference_, to be watched by walls that she's never let see her.

To free her.

For a moment.

And again, "…I'm gonna come so hard for you, San…"

Like a savage whisper, you insist to her,

Because you believe in her power.

And she uses it. Her fingers quick with your words to show that she heard you;

One, and two, and hard and fast,

She takes you.

Her hand tight inside the confines of your pants, her palm pushes against you, or grinds against you, or slams against you when she rams home the force of feeling,

Not oblivious, because she speaks;

Your words back to you. She tells you in motion just how hard she's taking you, she growls her own primal instinct around how fast she's fucking you, and,

"…come for me,"

She commands like a plea,

Her fingers still fast inside you. And _Brittany_ she pants, her breaths uneven,

And harder, or higher she takes you. Your hips bucking to her rhythm as your body breaks beneath her beats. She takes you…

And for her, you give everything.

You give a pitched cry when her touch curls and her fingers find your blind spot, or the spot that makes you blind; you grind. And you give her your words; you name her,

_Santana_,

You affirm it, and you give her what she wants. Because you come so hard for her.

So fast, like the fastest, and she buries your cries beneath her lips and she swallows your sounds and she carries you down, no longer hard. But soft she strokes you when she pulls her hand away, and soft she kisses you when you sigh at her leaving. And then she rests. Her head turning so that her face finds the crook between your shoulder and your neck, her breaths struggling to find a calm in amongst the storm she just created.

And _San, _you say.

Still a little shaky yourself. Just the slightest quiver in your hand when you raise it up to find her. You stroke her hair. You tickle your touch down her t-shirt and across her back, and you hold her close, and,

She presses her lips to your neck and she kisses you.

…

It was the prelude to the kiss she then placed on your lips, and that was the prelude to her lifting herself up from the bed and lifting you up with her. And,

The house didn't feel so empty when you left it behind you.

Maybe because of her smile. Like, you told her you loved her. You actually told her. And she hasn't stopped smiling since. In honesty, you don't think either of you have stopped smiling, or touching, or extending the moment. Like, even now, the hour after, she's still craving that connection and the closeness your words bring. And there's an ease in that touch. Like, as easy as your touches have always been, your spoken _love_ has pushed you past a threshold you didn't even know she was holding, and now;

She smiles at you like she really did find some source of power up in her bedroom. And she slides her hand into yours and her thumb strokes across your skin, and she leads you back across the car park to the dance studio with all sorts of hyped up pep in her step. She has the track you've put together uploaded on her iPhone. She has all your ideas and her ideas mashed together in her mind. And she has you.

Or she holds the door for you, and you look at her, and you smile so wide.

You don't ask if she's okay to be here again, and you don't say anymore words that warn her to be nice to your friend, because you trust her. And her smile isn't the kind that speaks of upcoming warfare or insults that wait to fly, it just says _hey. _Over and over, like every time she looks at you she wants to say _hello_.

Once inside the studio, she takes your hand again.

Her eyes don't worry about for Mike, or wonder away at Rachel, she just slides each of her fingers between your own, and she walks with purpose at your side. And you share in her pep, you share all of her feelings, and when you spy Mike, already stretching and shaping his body to the beats spilling out loud from the sound system, you walk towards him happy. Even when he spies you back, when his eyes slip to the side and spy Santana also, you don't do anything other than grin your biggest grin at him. You lift your free hand and you offer him a wave, and you wait while he lowers the volume and lumbers slowly over to your side.

When Santana speaks up before you do, you think again of founding power.

Because this is different. The way she drops your hand to hold hers out in front of her instead, the way she lifts her lips to greet Mike, and;

She says _hey_ in her sweet way. She squares her shoulders and she lifts her chin and she tells him in a tone that sounds all sorts of sincere that she's sorry for the way she went at him yesterday;

"…I was having a bad day," she informs him, "but that's really no excuse; you're a great dancer, Mike, and your spins were all spot on… I just…"

She shrugs her shoulder, and she rolls her eyes, and you look to him.

He looks back to you, before he looks to her, and, "No worries," he says. Not with the same sincerity or surety that Santana's speaking with, but you understand his caution. You get why the display of yesterday still lingers a little about his mouth even though he smiles.

And you think,

You think that it's best just to lay it all out right now. You think that it's better to speak up before you stretch and limber yourself and loosen your body for dancing.

You take a step forward, and you say; "I was thinking about the show…"

And you lift your lips a little, and you feel Santana's hand on your back, and;

"…I had some really great ideas, and…"

"I thought we already agreed on The Nutcracker," he says, his eyebrow lifting in question.

"Sure, we did, and The Nutcracker is totally awesome, but I think I've thought of a way to make it even more so; like…"

You turn your head to look at Santana, and she hands her phone out for you to take.

"…I put this track together, and it's just the beginning, but…" You shrug your shoulder up and down, and he tilts his head a little to the side as he looks at you. "…It's a really _great_ idea," you say, "I think it'd make the best Christmas show _ever._"

Because you do.

And you implore him with your eyes, and he folds his arms. He glances across to the door that leads out of the studio, and then he looks back to you;

"You know what my Uncle's like with his traditions," he begins, and Santana speaks up again.

"Trust me, Mikey," she says, her tone charming itself about conspiratorial, "I know all about those familial weights of expectation, and I understand that your Uncle's the man we need to convince; but just listen to Brittany, yeah? Let her show you the track."

He looks past your shoulder and then his eyes meet yours. He holds out his hand;

"And you're sure it's still The Nutcracker?" he asks when you pass him the phone.

And you tell him. As you walk along at his side to the sound system, before he even places the phone in the dock, you start to tell him the basic outlay for all of your ideas. You tell him how cool it would be if you took the ballet and the basics of The Nutcracker and then ripped it and mixed it and gave it some beat. You talk about a protracted dance battle with Christmas fairies and with elves that swagger, and you pitch it all through the different genres of dance.

You grab his hand when he finally smiles back at you and you slide him quick through some Salsa, and when he laughs out loud you cock your hip and you lock your shoulders, and you show off the robot.

It joins Santana's laughter to his, and when you finish with a spin, when you bring your hands together and arch out your elbows and execute the perfect pirouette, she speaks yet again.

She says _awesome_. She says;

"Think about it, Mike…" with that same sound of confidence. "…You can show off all of your strong points, all the different styles your uncle teaches here… And the kids will love it, _right_? And it's different, and it's fresh, and it's…"

She doesn't finish because Mike holds his hand up. He turns and he presses play on the phone and then he stands back and waits for it to start. And you wait too, because in Santana's room it sounded perfect, and;

_Awesome._

You're sure, as the beginning beats of delicacy tickle the traditional tones of The Nutcracker. Your fingers are tapping together as you wait for the drop, and when it drops, it drops _hard_. Like every time you heard it in your head, it drops like a rock from a cliff top, and the bass comes in heavy, and your hips move, or your feet move, and the dub steps between the beats of the ballet and it's _everything _you wanted it to be, and you look at Mike.

With itchy feet and twitching toes, and that pep still hyped and happy.

He _smiles_. His lips twisting as he savours the sounds, as his own feet start to tap to the beat, and you _know_ he wants to dance with you. To this.

And you do.

You dance and you laugh and dance some more. You discuss all of your ideas for other tracks and other styles and how you can divide the dancers into different factions, and how it all pulls together for one giant finale where the magic of Christmas unites everything, and you all dance together in one final surge before the curtain falls.

Triumphant.

You think.

Because he starts to add his own ideas. And he starts to look at Santana differently. When she takes what he says and weaves his words together with yours and then stitches them tight with thoughts of her own. He looks at her different.

And he listens to her; her confidence charming him. Or not even charming him, because there's so much sense behind everything she's saying; like when he talks performance, she talks numbers. She tells you both how large each posse of dancers should be, and she points at space only she can see when she talks you through how each number can come together and lead into the next. And she's just as excited as you are. Even though she's not dipping to the beats, and twirling about exuberant as you pile together set lists, her enthusiasm is just as evident as yours and Mike's.

And you think, maybe, he'll end up liking her.

You can see for sure that he's going to give it a shot and that he's turned the page on yesterday's bad beginnings. He even jokes a little with her, and when she insists on calling him _Mikey, _more than once, he never gets round to objecting. He primps beneath her praise, and now that he's onboard with all of your ideas, she's happy to heap the praise on top of him.

And it's a bit charming. And you are a bit charmed.

A lot, you think.

Every time she pauses to smile at you. Every time she watches you as you execute another move to another idea and her smile lifts higher.

You're charmed. Delighted.

Mostly in love.

And you flush beneath her praise. You blush beneath that look in her eyes.

Because she's so soft for you, she's just…

"Hey," she says, as she sidles up beside you. You're packing your bits back into your bag and pulling out your loose jersey to wear over your vest, and she crouches by your side, and she throws her thumb back over her shoulder; "Mike said he'll talk to his uncle tonight," she tells you, comfortable with her new comrade, "he seems pretty confident he can get him to listen."

"It's a great idea."

"Yeah," she agrees and then she reminds you, "_your_ great idea."

Except; "It's kind of ours, now," you say.

She smiles and she leans towards you; she softens her gaze even more.

"We make a pretty good team, huh?"

"I think we make an awesome team, Santana."

And you smile right back at her. You lean a little closer when her smile becomes a pout or a pucker, or a kiss waiting to be taken.

And you take it.

Sure and certain and utterly charmed, you kiss your lips to hers.

When Mike coughs, she doesn't pull away from you; she lingers a moment more, she hums her approval for you when she does pull away, and then she turns her head to Mike. She smiles. She lifts herself up with the hand he offers, and they make quick and easy words about talking tomorrow. She makes words, with your friend, who is working with Rachel, to talk to him tomorrow.

It's a thought that repeats itself.

It's a thought that holds your hand to hers when you make your way back outside and she walks you across the car park and over to her car. She holds the door for you, she mentions going and grabbing some dinner, and it's so easy to believe, as you want to believe, that everything is perfect. Because right here and right now, by her side and on the same team, still basking in the glow from your spoken words of love, every single thing feels perfect.

…

For the moment.

Like, if there was such a thing as one perfect moment, then you think that you may be close to living it. You feel like you've been pampered to the point of complete adoration; as if every single one of Santana's actions is directed towards making you feel good.

After dancing the day away and discussing all of your ideas with Mike, she'd taken you for dinner, just as she suggested. Then once home, she'd left you on the sofa with Lord Tubbington and she had gone to the en suite and run you a bath. A bath which she'd lowered herself into behind you; her touch reverent as again she'd insisted on soaping your hair, and then your back, and then every inch of skin she could find to bring suds to. And that was perfect and wonderful and everything amazing. And then.

Because Santana is more than amazing,

She'd wrapped you up in one of the fluffiest towels from your cupboard, she'd led you over to your bed, and then, and now. Because now is perfect.

For the moment.

At least, it feels perfect.

You're laying on your bed, face down into the covers, you have your towel down and bunched about your ass, and Santana is sitting astride you. On top again. And her hands, her fingers, she's working slowly into each one of your muscles; like… You think you may have died and gone to heaven. It's not as if you haven't had a massage before, you've had plenty, but no one has ever touched you the way that Santana is touching you.

Just…

Adoration. You feel it.

Every time her hands traverse the expanse of your back, when she pushes down into your skin before sweeping slowly upwards, you're sure of it. The way that her thumbs dig down and search out even the tiniest of knots, or the way that her fingers feather when she reaches your neck and her touch becomes light, and she leans down and…

"You're so beautiful," she'll say.

Or she has said. Her breath warm into your ear, her lips always lingering to leave a trace of a kiss of what's to come, her tongue sometimes tripping out to seal it a promise.

And _god._

You want to keep her.

For this moment and all of the moments, you really do want to keep her.

You think you say it, like a moan maybe, or a sigh of pleasure that erupts into words.

Because, "I'm definitely keeping you," you insist.

Maybe mumbled into your pillow, yet still;

She leans forward. Her touch tickles you barely there as she rests her hands either side of your ribcage, and her mouth by your ear sounds as relaxed and happy as a Sunday evening should sound. And she says, "No, Britt… I'm keeping you."

And you smile. Not because she mirrored your words, but because of the way she said them. And it's that control again, you think, maybe. Or that confidence. Or the way that she speaks as if she sees the same future you can see, and she really is starting to believe in it.

And you get that, and so you smile.

Because maybe your belief has grown a little bit stronger too.

Like, whereas before you were certain and sure, now you're surely certain of being certainly sure. It's just…

Like that flower blooming again, only it's not the kind of bloom that only shows its face in fleeting glances. Because her glances for you are never fleeting. Nothing about her is fleeting, you think, when it comes to you.

Like her lips that still linger by your ear.

Or her touch, still light, that teases up your ribcage to ghost across the outside of your breasts.

And she says;

"Don't you mind…?"

And you think. And you smile.

"Mind? That you're keeping me? No," you say, and you smile into your covers. "It's possibly the best idea you've ever had, and you're full of really good ideas Santana."

She leans down into you a little closer, and you feel her lips on your neck and you feel her tongue snake up to touch your ear again; "Not that."

She says, and you think again.

And she whispers, close to your ear;

"Don't you mind that I didn't say it back?"

She _whispers_. You hear her though, and _oh_ you think. Because in honesty, it wasn't something you made notes next to, and now she's asking, you don't have an answer ready on the tip of your tongue. You still just have a smile.

And you turn your head, a little, you angle your body beneath her so as you can see her face.

"Do _you_ mind?" you ask in return, and it obviously isn't what she was expecting, because she pulls herself up from you. Not from all of you, she doesn't lift her body away completely, she just pulls back. A bit… She drops her hands from your sides and she rests them down on the duvet instead.

And _no_ she says. Only,

More.

"I've never said that to anyone before," she tells you. And it's not so hard to believe her.

You lift yourself up on your arms at her words though; you shift her enough behind you so that you can turn beneath her, and you land looking up into her eyes. You smile, again, because you have so many smiles for her, and you touch at her t-shirt, and you pull her down towards you.

She lets you.

She pauses before your lips, she draws back to find your eyes, and;

"I don't mind at all," you say, and you watch her brow furrow. You lift your head and you kiss her softly and slowly and all sorts of chaste; "I know how you feel Santana."

"You do?"

"Of _course_ I do," you insist to her in whispers of your own. "And I think it's the most special thing in the world," you say, "and I think that with special things, sometimes, it makes you feel really careful. And I like that you're careful with me. I love it."

You say, and again you smile. And for you, again, she softens.

You see it. Like, you can actually see her insides melt. And you know how she feels about you, because you love her just as much. And it _is_ the most special thing in the world.

Her kiss confirms it.

And her words;

"I love that you're careful with me too," she tells you.

Her words are the kind that lead chaste kisses into something longer. Like, when she leans into you this time, she doesn't pause with thoughts or more whispers to make, she just takes your mouth and makes it hers again. Still slow and still careful,

And for the moment it's perfect.

Even when she pulls back and your lips lift to try and follow her, it's perfect.

And she laughs at you, and she bops her finger on the end of your nose and she tells you she wasn't done yet. "…You still have a couple of kinks," she says, and it's enough to wiggle your eyebrows.

"I have more than a couple of kinks."

And _Britt…_

She smiles, and you paint your face innocent; "What? I totally do. You've barely even touched my lower back, and then there's my legs…"

She says _kinky legs_ like she's questioning your innocence, and you bend them beneath her. You shift her forward on your body until she's sat across your stomach, and her back rests against your knees. And _sure_ you say, "My calf muscle are killing me. They could definitely use some attention."

She rolls her eyes.

She laughs at you.

She leans in for another kiss. And this time you catch her; you lift your arms up behind her neck and you keep her close to you. You keep her kissing you.

And it's perfect.

And you think nothing could disturb this. Only, you think it because of the disturbance.

Like, background noise that lands you firmly in the foreground.

That lifts her lips away from you.

That lifts her body off of you.

And _San_ you say, or you ask, only her eyes are skittish and she's fixed on her phone.

And you don't recognise her ring tones. The majority of the time that she's with you, her phone doesn't even feature in her existence. And now, really, her phone's only by her side because you were listening again to the track you made. You were exclaiming again about your team full of awesome.

Yet she doesn't look so awesome. She looks a little sick.

And she lets it ring off. And she looks at you.

_Quinn,_ she announces, her smile turned grim.

And again her phone erupts noise, and again, your reality crashes.

…

Not too hard. It's not like you forgot that Quinn exists; you just…

You forgot that Quinn's existence affected you quite so effectively.

To you, it seems almost a world away since the Fairfield weekend. Like the seven days since your return have fooled you enough into thinking that all of your worlds can exist somehow separate, without ever really colliding.

Yet;

You watch Santana stare down at her phone, and you know it's not so simple.

When she sighs a deep sigh and answers the call, you know it's not that simple at all.

And you listen, and you watch, and you wonder _why now_.

Because as far as you're aware, Quinn is in New Haven. And as far as you're aware, she's not flying back in until tomorrow morning, only;

"You're what?" you hear Santana say, and the pieces start shifting. "Why the hell are you at my house? We're not even speaking."

You watch her face twist in ways you don't like to see, and you witness her eyes slide hard and her mouth snarl nasty. You listen as she insists to Quinn that she doesn't have to tell her where she is or what she's doing… or she does, because;

"…For fuck's sake, I'm at Puck's okay? Can you unwind your panties now? Can we dial down a little on _Crazy Quinn_ before I'm forced put the phone down?"

She says and the snarl shifts. Your eyebrows dip. She sighs.

"I don't want to fight, either… No… I'm busy," she states, she walks away from your bed. "Of course I want to sort things out…"

You watch her face change in the shadows cast by your lamplight, and you lift yourself up from the bed beneath you. You take the sheet, you wrap it about your body, and you go to the bathroom. It's not like you don't want to hear or to puzzle at what's being said…

Just. The one-sided-ness of the conversation was prickling your thought process with too much to consider. Like, why Quinn is calling, or… _Puck_?

You wonder.

And you wait. You sit on the edge of the bathtub and you listen to her mumble in the distance and you wait. You shiver a little in the cool air of your en suite, you pull the sheet a little tighter about your body.

And still,

You wait until she appears in the doorway. You wait until she lifts her eyes from the floor to fix up on yours. And you say;

"Quinn, huh?"

Like an easy opening; only she doesn't take it straight away. She shuffles by the door a bit, she drops her gaze down more than once before she comes and sits next you, perched on the edge of the tub. She confirms _Quinn_;

"She said she wants to see me."

"Now?" you ask.

"Yeah now, but no. I'm not going anywhere Britt."

You turn your head to look at her, and she turns her head to look away. And, "Who's Puck?" you ask.

"No one important."

"Okay."

And she sighs, like frustration, like her perfect moment has been taken away too. You nudge your shoulder into hers, you wait for more words;

"He's just a guy, okay? I used to hang out with him when…" she pauses, she looks at you slowly, a little unsurely, "…when me and Quinn, back then. Before I was sure…"

And _oh_, you say, because you think you get it.

"…He's just a guy; I hardly ever see him anymore. Just, Quinn's always hated him; it was an easy thing to say."

Only she doesn't sound so easy saying it.

You nudge her with your shoulder again. You ask if she wants a drink, or something…

Just.

You're a little thrown. Not by Puck, or by names of boys whom she says don't mean anything.

Just everything.

A bit. You think.

You stand from the tub, and you go to walk to the door. Yet she catches you, she reaches out her hand and she grabs it back towards her. She says _wait_, and you do.

You wait until she stands in front of you. And her brow wears the smallest of frowns and her teeth are biting into her lip, and,

"I'm sorry," she says, and you say, _sorry?_

"I've ruined the mood," she tells you, somewhat forlorn, "we were having the best day, and,"

"It's still the best day," you say.

Her eyes find the floor, though. Her chin drops down.

And you lift it. You hold your sheet together with one hand, and the other you use as leverage to lift her gaze back your way. And you stare at her, for a moment,

Another moment.

"Nothing's changed, Santana," you insist, "it's not like we didn't know that Quinn was coming back, and, you kind of knew we'd have to deal with her… so…"

"Right," she says. And she sighs.

She closes her eyes.

"I'm meeting her in the morning," she tells you.

You answer her with _okay,_ and you pull her really close against you. Because you're not sure it is okay. You're not sure of a lot of things right now.

Because the pieces are shifting. And you can feel them shifting.

And something tells you, it almost implores you, to hold on really tight.

…


	22. Miss Communication

You think today, the thing you're most unsure of is how to quiet your memories.

Because here in the present you're able to look into Santana's eyes and trust in her truths and see forward into the future, yet, your memories of days not long gone by are taking great delight in stoking the most silent of your fears. You see the dankness of an ill lit alleyway. Your tummy turns sick with tension when you remember Quinn pressed up tight against Santana and demanding truth of a different kind.

You can't help that you fell quiet last night.

You can't help that it took all the way until morning to find words that shaped your woes; your spoon stuck in your coffee cup, your fingers stuck to your spoon, and absently stirring at sugar that had long since dissolved. And,

"What if…" You'd said, meeting Santana's eyes slowly, "…what if Quinn wants…"

_You,_ was how you wanted to say it, yet your mouth clamped closed and refused to make it a sound; not so soon after the _you _had been so thoroughly declared yours. You just shrugged it out. You implored her silently not to drop her eyes away from you or to dismiss your words behind her own set of worries, and she didn't. Not entirely. She walked her fingertips your way across the countertop, she shook her head despondent, and, "Brittany…"

Spoken sad, as if she was pained by the fact you were even posing the question. Your memory is impeccable when it comes to feelings though, and you remember exactly how it felt when you saw that certain scene unfolding before you.

It was_ misery_. You remember.

It had spread your eyes wider. It'd asked her for more than your spoken name as an affirmation;

"I just… What if, Santana?"

"She won't."

"But…"

"She won't," she'd said, hard. And then she sighed. A deep inside sigh. A long and protracted breath that'd brought forth her explanatory words; "It's never really been about the _sex _for Quinn; it's about control and power and… I _rejected_ her, Britt, I was so fucking _mean_ to her; she won't go there again. She'll wait for me to be the one who comes crawling back to her."

"But you won't, right?"

And again, "_Brittany…_" Bringing your eyes tight to hers, "…You _know_ how I feel… You know that I…"

And her eyebrows did that thing where they knit really tight together, and her teeth took a grip of her lip, "…You know I wouldn't give this up for anything. I wouldn't give _you_ up for anything. I want this. I want _you_."

You listened to her words and within that present, you trusted absolutely in her truth. Her honest about everything truth. The truth that lifted her up from her stool and walked her around the breakfast bar, and pressed her lips against yours in the sweetest of kisses.

"I'm not going anywhere," she assured you.

And then she left. To go and meet Quinn.

And then you left. To go and meet Sam.

You still have another three hours until you're due to meet Quinn for yourself.

Like another pile of something to add to your already growing pile of something that you can't quite put a name to. Because today you a have a late lunch meeting with Holly and Team Chang and Rachel Berry… And of course, Quinn. And maybe for a moment, you understand the whole sentiment of hating Mondays, because it's most definitely a feeling you identify with today.

Or you're just being melodramatic. Or…

Maybe you're a little scared too. Just a little.

Not enough to question your Santana-sized certainties, but enough to pinch your smile. Enough to steal it from your face and replace it with a scowl, a slight frown, a _nothing's up _when everything feels down. Because Sam had asked;

"What's up, Britt?"

And nothing. Because it's only a little fear. It's nothing to worry about. Not really.

You think.

You think about your ideas for the show and you push the woes aside. You don't let yourself look at your phone at all after the first thirty minutes of hearing nothing from Santana. You don't expect her to check in with you, yet she did insist she would speak to you once she was done. She assured you in all the ways she knew how.

So you work.

You stop by Holly's office to discuss in person the ideas you sent across to her at the weekend, and when she seems on board with all of them, you settle into the chair opposite her and you listen to her expansions. Because you thought it might be fun to do some kind of talent style showdown instead of a political one, and have Lord Tubbington be the judge. You know for a fact that Quinn and Rachel used to compete through the medium of song for leads in school productions, and you figure it'll definitely be a feature that appeals to your audience at large.

Holly takes all of that and insists that a stage be added to your mocked up bedroom set, that you have full on bands backing both girls in whatever songs they choose to sing, and she insists you've done it again;

"Absolute _gold_," she informs you before you leave her office. "The eyes upstairs are still watching, Brittany. You're going places, Girl. Big places."

She winks your way and fires off a finger gunned salute in your direction, and she tells you with the biggest grin that she'll see you later at lunch.

…

Quinn's late.

Not for lunch, you're still an hour early before that, sat behind the desk in your office and going over schedules, yet Quinn is meant to be here already to go over them with you, and so far she isn't. She sent you a text twenty minutes ago to tell you she was on her way, so you know that she's coming, but still. She's late; and her message in your inbox is the only one you received so far.

It's otherwise empty, and the day is still feeling crappy. Even when Sam launches a rolled up wad of paper in your direction, all you do is turn and pout your way through a frown instead of firing back his way. And again, he asks;

"Seriously Britt, are you gonna tell me what's bothering you, or do I need to come over there and find out for myself?"

He points at the phone you're holding as if that holds the answers to your _what's up_, and you drop it to your desk as if it's nothing. You lean back your head and you stretch out your shoulders and you turn to him.

Your chair, just a touch. Just a slight angle of rotation.

"Don't you ever just have a bad day?" you ask.

He tilts his head on your question and he looks a little closer;

"Sure," he says. "Sometimes I do. But you don't Britt. Not really… Not in the whole time I've known you. Your smile only ever slips if there's a _really_ good reason."

You contemplate his words. You value his judgements.

You trace his line of enquiry back in your mind to that place in the alleyway again. You see how close your dream can reside to a nightmare, and you close your eyes on all of it. Just for a moment, just for one long breath in and then one long breath out.

Because really, when it comes right down to it;

"I told Santana I love her," you say to Sam, and at his look you bite hard at your lip.

He just eyes you confused; he tilts his head to the side and makes his mouth into a giant-sized pout;

"Is that not a good thing?"

"It's a really good thing," you assure him soft, but you can still feel your eyebrows knitting together, you can still feel your thoughts fleeing in all directions. Because you've never done this before. And it's not that you're scared, because you know Santana will be there to catch you…

…You tell yourself you're sure of it. Certain, in fact. And anyway, falling to you only feels like flying.

Only you keep landing in that alleyway, beneath the cover of the clouds. And there's echoes hidden there of words she's spoken, and of worries and of fears. Because;

_What if I can't?_

She asked you before. And maybe now you're actually starting to consider that question.

Not solidly, it's not as if you're suddenly second guessing the things that you know to be true. It's more of a sub-conscious niggling, like a tiny voice, or a needle in a haystack that just keeps digging into your side. Like a thorn perhaps, or,

"Quinn!" Sam says loud, lifting your head from down, and bringing your eyes back up.

And sure enough, there she stands. And sure enough, just as you always do, you observe and you take her measure.

The set high smile and the eyes shining bright. The whites and the yellows that mark out her clothes, complemented perfectly by the dainty little bag she carries hooked over her arm. You watch her walk across the room, and her posture makes you think of skipping, like there's something gay beneath her bounce that's lifting her lips all happy. She exclaims her _hello_ to Sam as if she truly is delighted to see him, and she forgoes the Hollywood air-kiss in favour of a friendly fist bump.

You just wonder at all you're seeing and you wait for her to turn.

Slowly.

As if maybe she's pausing a moment too.

And, "Brittany," she says, less sure sounding than when she greeted _Sam. _Her tone inching towards inquisitive as she walks her way towards you; "How was your weekend?"

"Good. How was Yale?"

"Good."

"Awesome."

She doesn't hold her fist out to you the same as Sam, yet neither does she lean down to kiss the air beside your face. For a moment it's like you're caught again in some weird staring-standoff, and you really do wonder at what her silent line of questioning might be.

You lift your eyebrow and so does she.

She smiles, and so do you.

"So tell me what the plan is for today?" she asks, bypassing the pause and sitting herself down in the chair opposite your desk. "Because I know your email said _lunch with Rachel Berry_, but I'm assuming that was a really bad typo?"

You hum a _hmmm_ and shrug your shoulder, and she rolls her eyes up and away before re-centering her gaze on you; "And I absolutely have to be there?"

"It'd help if you were; we're finalising the format for the show, so," you shrug your shoulder again, and you catch Sam's movement from the corner of your eye. He walks over to your desk and perches on the edge - his smile large enough to compensate for any lift you're not finding, and with his words he fills in the format, or he states quite simply;

"Looks like we're finally getting our battle of the bands."

He grins at you both, and Quinn arches her eyebrow even higher than before.

"Dare I ask what that means?"

"Pretty much what Sam said," you inform her. "We're gonna go with a sing-off style situation and Lord Tubbington will be the judge, and…"

You stop because both of her eyebrows are now hugging her hairline and her mouth has slipped to leave her jaw-dropped and gaping. Her eyes widen before they narrow, and you wait while she brings her face back under control. It takes less than a second.

You count it.

"You want me to have a _sing off_ against Rachel Berry?"

You nod and Sam says _hell yeah_! He bumps his fist against her shoulder and chants something about _Team Fabray_. Only,

Her eyes don't leave yours and her lips sit in a tightened straight line.

"It'll be totally cool," you offer, leaning forward in your chair, "Holly's got these ideas to build a real stage and have you backed up by a real band, and-"

"Have you heard Rachel sing yet?"

You tilt your head and think it through;

"Well, not really," you admit, "I've heard her on the show, but not in person. You can sing too, though, yeah? I'm sure you'll give her a run for her money, Quinn; you shouldn't be worried."

She looks at you. She stares at you.

You count one and then two and then,

"I'm not worried."

Yet she looks…

…_affected_. Like the thought of facing Rachel in a contest of vocal ability is certainly a worry.

You're not surprised.

You are a little surprised though when she turns that look back into a smile. A big one, the one that actually catches her eyes and shows her teeth. She flashes it at you; she lifts it up to Sam.

"If I wasn't so sure of beating her in the long run, I'd perhaps be somewhat concerned. As it is, this will hopefully just prove to be an amusing distraction…"

And for a minute you are distracted. And Quinn just sits and keeps on smiling.

…

A smile she carries with her all the way to lunch.

It irritates you.

Under normal circumstances, Quinn smiling this much is how you'd hope to face all of your work days, but on this day, every time she fleets a fast grin in your direction, something in you twists and turns and rages close to violent. Like a storm collecting above the clouds.

And you bite it back. You bite your lip.

You try and smile as often as she does.

You're faking through everything though, because your inbox still sits empty, and maybe that irritates you too. Like, you could text Santana, you could be all blasé and - _hey babe, how'd it go with Quinn__ - _except. Something in you is making you wait, and maybe you're seeing if she'll come to you first. If things have shifted enough so as you don't always have to go looking for her.

Maybe.

You hope. Or maybe you wonder.

Or maybe you focus all of your thoughts onto work, and you follow Quinn's smile with all of your faked enthusiasm, and you ignore Sam's looks, and you throw thumbs up at Holly, and when Rachel arrives at the restaurant and she leans across the table to take your hand in hers, you take it and you shake it, and you all sit down to lunch.

At least most of you sit down.

Rachel stays standing. She leans across and takes Holly's hand. She makes a point of not missing out Sam. And then she stops and she looks at Quinn. She holds her hand straight out in front of her.

The table is large and round, and Quinn is seated at your side, and you can't help but flick your glance her way in the moment;

And there's still a curve to her lip. Up, and not down.

She says, "Really, Rachel?"

She raises her brow; "I don't quite think we're at the holding hands stage yet, do you?"

And you look. You watch Rachel falter for a moment. You see Quinn's curve rise higher.

"I'm just trying to take the civil approach," Rachel eventually replies, and Quinn finally leans forward and takes her hand. She shakes it, slowly.

"A civil approach? But when have we ever found any fun in that?"

She holds onto Rachel's hand for longer than you think is probably necessary, and you note how long they hold each other's gaze…

And for a moment you forget all about Santana. Kind of.

Because this is something you've waited to see. Perhaps without even realizing it, you've wanted to take a closer look at this dynamic without Santana in the mix; you've wanted to follow the flow of their words and measure their meanings and rotate another piece of the puzzle until you can find a way to make it fit.

Like, there's so much you still don't know here.

You know Rachel wanted Finn and you know that she got him.

And Quinn wanted…

You think.

Like, maybe that's the whole of it. She wants without knowing, so she just wants everything.

Like a hole that can't be filled.

Because even with everything she has, she never quite looks satisfied, you think. And you think. And you keep on watching. And it really does make you wonder at what Quinn _actually_ wants. Not here and now, not four weeks from now or five weeks from now, but long gone from the now.

Because you've only ever heard tales of a dream told from Santana's perspective. You've not dipped your own words into Quinn's dreams; you've never asked her future for yourself.

In the actual _now _you don't think you need to wonder at what her goals are at all.

Her gaze is mainly focused on Rachel, and you see her guarding her words the same way that you are, yet, unlike you, she holds the look of someone waiting to strike. Like, when Holly announces her ideas to fun-fill the singing contest and Rachel says;

"We are going to keep some political meaning in the show, right? I believe highlighting policies is extremely important at this part of the process, and I'm sure tha-"

"You're still the most sanctimonious shrew I've ever had the displeasure of meeting?"

Quinn shapes all of her words around her steadfast smile, and she graces it not only in Rachel's direction, but also Holly's and the rest of Rachel's team; "I think we're all aware how terribly _important_ policies are Rachel, but this is MTV, and this is meant to be exciting… Do you really think the audience is going to want to watch you getting far too turned on by your father's budget balancing plans?"

She smiles again at Holly. She rolls her eyes at you. "I think the singing idea is a _great _idea; I'm completely onboard with Holly's plan."

Holly returns the smile and she thanks Quinn. She insists to Rachel that party politics are maybe a subject too heavy to unload onto Lord Tubbington, and you nod your head in complete agreement. You watch Rachel's gaze operate the opposite to what you expect.

You see her soften for a second. You notice the slight lean to the left of her head;

"You actually want to sing with me Quinn?" she asks.

And there's a pause.

And it's brilliant.

Like the perfect parry that leaves Quinn the one to falter; that leaves room for Rachel to take her words further and drip delight over her own memories of the past. Because;

"Our voices actually complement each other really well; I may have won _all_ of the leads in our school productions, but Quinn played second string quite fantastically and up on stage we really did have the greatest fun. I'm honestly touched that Quinn wants to revisit those memories though…" She teases it out, glancing ever so sweetly in Quinn's direction. "…Especially considering how much she insisted she hated it at the time…"

She trails off her words with a giant beaming smile, and for a moment there's silence.

You gather your gaze around the table.

You see Sam's smile hiding behind the bite of his lip.

You see Holly's absolute delight at the contest shaping up before her.

Team Chang are staring down at their laps and exchanging shady glances.

And Quinn.

She's still holding a smile of her own. You think it looks dangerous.

You're sure it looks determined.

Or perhaps she just looks determinedly at Rachel;

"I'm going to enjoy this _so_ much," she says.

And you're sure she now _sounds_ dangerous. Like she's talking about more than a singing contest, and about more than a high school rivalry, and…

"It'll be just like old times," Rachel suggests, apparently unaffected by Quinn's tone.

"Not exactly; I'd say the spoils are much greater this time around."

The words lift Rachel's brow in question and Quinn continues;

"This time the winner really will be taking it all."

…

Quinn's predictions leave an ominous taste in your mouth for the rest of your lunch, and even though the atmosphere at the table never again crackled as it did in that instant, there was also never an air of ease that settled down over everyone's shoulders to make the event an enjoyable one. It stayed tense and tight and it teetered every now and again towards rude words and abrupt words, and you're sure by the end of the meeting, the only ones really left smiling are Holly, Rachel, and of course, Quinn.

It makes you feel, not for the first time, like a pawn in a giant game of chess that you never asked to play; like everyone here has some kind of messed up agenda, or moves that they're mapping five plays in advance, when all you've wanted to do the whole way along is to make a really great TV show.

And love Santana.

You sigh.

Because it's the easiest thing you've _ever_ done; yet,

…Not everything about this is easy.

You're back at your desk, and Quinn is sat across from you, and Sam is out scouting the location for tomorrow's filming, and Team Chang are out of the office, and,

"You seem ever so un_-Brittany_ like, today," Quinn pronounces, leaning forward in her chair. She folds her arms onto your desk and she looks up at you with her crafted smile in place. "Did lunch with Berry unsettle your stomach as much as it did mine?"

"Rachel was fine," you insist, and you shrug.

"Rachel's never fine; she's irritating… Like an itch you can't ever seem to scratch."

"Like an obsession?"

"No; more like poison ivy." And she smiles up at you again. She makes her voice soft and light and airily pretty, and she asks you more about the schedule for the week ahead. She brushes off any more immediate talk about Rachel, and when you ask her for song ideas for the super-spectacular singing edition of Fondue For Two, all she says is that she'll think about it later. She ushers you onward. She flits all the way through your upcoming week, and then she throws you for a fast loop. Or she loops her words back to the past and she asks you;

"Did you manage to watch the show Friday night?"

And she sits a little further forward in her chair.

And _sure_, you say.

"And..?"

It feels like there's something loaded behind her question, and you work quick to separate your memories from your face. You don't smile at the thought of Santana by your side. You don't follow that thought through to Friday evening's conclusions.

Or you do, like a fast flash of unforgettable pleasure that forces you to drop your eyes quick to cover the moment. When you lift them again, your gaze has reclaimed professional and sure;

"It was awesome," you tell her, subverting intentions. "Like, Rachel's part was _really_ cool too, and I loved how she had her dads doing the karaoke for back-up, but we're still on top, so,"

"Did you have one of your little viewing parties?"

"Uh-huh. Sam and Mercedes came over… And Lord Tubbington was there."

"Sounds like a lot of fun."

"It was," you agree, nodding your head. "We always have a blast. They're really good friends."

She smiles at you and she watches you and you ask her;

"Did you manage to catch the show?"

She shakes her head _no; _"I checked the website after, but I was extremely busy Friday night; was Rachel's part _really_ that impressive?"

She doesn't look particularly concerned, or even irritated to be talking about Rachel again, and you nod your head in honesty. You tell her a little more about all of the action from New York, and you watch her smile creep ever higher, and she eases her attention even further across your desk; like, her elbows creep an extra inch forward and you swear she's hanging on your every word as if she's memorising it all for future usage.

When you come to a stop, she holds her silence.

And her smile.

And then she tells you, as certain as you've ever heard her;

"I really am going to _love_ taking her down, Brittany."

Her words still bright, but not at all airy. Her eyes alight and shining sureties.

And it's like, you're feeling confident too; all of the polls are heading steadily in your direction, and whatever the mythical effect everyone keeps talking about actually _is_, it seems to be doing enough to keep the audience on your side. Yet still; you know not to make assumptions when there's so much more still to come. You know, honestly, somewhere deep inside, that you can't really declare a winner and divide the spoils until the dust of war has settled.

Quinn looks sure though.

So sure.

As if she's spotted the future already and she knows she'll be landing on top.

You can't help but ask her; to dig a little deeper.

"How can you be _sure_ though?"

"Because I am."

"But… _how?_"

You ask it again, and still her lips don't halt in their task of smiling. And it's not a fake smile; you don't see her muscles working to craft disguises you have to sneak to peek behind, it's just there, as if it belongs there. As if she's sure right down to the depths of her being and she holds not a trace of doubt.

"I'm just extremely well prepared," is all she offers when she finally answers you, though, and you're left wondering at what exactly has changed. How it is that she's gone from asking your advice on beating Rachel, to prophesising her role as the inevitable champion.

You ask the obvious. You loop her back to the weekend again;

"What were you actually doing back at Yale, Quinn? Did it, like, I don't know… Does your big project have something to do with Rachel?"

And she flinches. And you catch it;

Like the slightest twitch behind her eyes, or a hurried hardening, or a realisation that maybe she's let a little too much of her truth shine through. You think maybe. Perhaps. Because she sits back in her chair, she runs her eyes over you in that measuring way again, and then she smiles; the different kind, the one that you're now used to seeing.

"Why on earth would my project have _anything_ to do with Rachel Berry? Do you realise how ridiculous that sounds Brittany?"

You shrug. You lean forward.

"You just seem really confident; which is cool, I'm pretty confident too. But, you're more confident. Super so." Your observation tilts her head, and she lifts her brow. "It just feels like maybe something happened this weekend."

She stares at you for a slow count to somewhere unknown, and then she places her words before you, not hard, yet not quite soft; "This weekend had nothing to do with Rachel; nothing at all. If I seem particularly confident, well…"

She smiles again. She mimics your shrug;

"…Let's just say I've got everything I need to succeed in place. This all comes down to the final debate, Brittany, and that's my arena to shine. Of course I'm going to beat Berry there; it'll be like… The perfect revenge, or justice, maybe. Possibly the poetic kind."

And you ask _justice_?

And she drops the smile from her face. She looks down, she looks up, and,

"Something like that," she says.

Like, _something_.

Because you don't yet understand any of the intricacies when it comes to Rachel and Quinn, or what it is that burns in the furnace and fires the obsession that Quinn simplified down to mean nothing but an irritation. From all you've heard so far, it really is all about Finn. Or the taking of Finn. Yet, you've learnt by now that what you hear doesn't often tell the full story. Not in this world at least, not when so much is hidden and so many words are left unspoken. So you watch her. You watch her face make its way back towards stoic; you watch her shoulders straighten out into the tightest line, and then you watch her stand from her chair.

"I really do need to get going," she tells you, and you nod _fine,_ because aside from going over the week's schedule, you don't have any other concerns that you need to raise right now, and the ones which you do wish to raise are more of the words left unspoken.

Like, what's your intentions with Santana?

Or, is there going to possibly come a point where I _might_ need to kill you?

Because pacifism is awesome, and an end to violence would be great, but.

You'd be a fool to think that Quinn doesn't have a plan here, and you think perhaps, it could be a plan bigger than anything you've even managed to consider her planning, and, you think definitely, again, that if she seeks to include Santana's downfall in any of her plans, then…

Well, you doubt you'd _really_ kill her, but you're sure it wouldn't be pretty.

For now you just keep smiling. You place your doubts atop your ever fluctuating pile of doubts, and you ask Quinn what she's got planned for the rest of her day. It's a question that only serves to heap your doubt pile that little bit higher though, because she looks at you as lingeringly as she's ever looked at you, and she smiles perhaps her most eagerly engaging smile, and she tells you,

"I'm having dinner with Santana; we've still got so much catching up to do."

…

The words lodged in your head and stuck in your throat, and though you kept your face immobile and didn't outwardly react, you felt it like a blow to your stomach. But higher; like, somehow her words cracked your chest and hurt your heart, and;

Jealous?

Sure. You think you can frame the words that way and pretend your blue eyes have been clouded by the sheen of the green eyed monster, but it's deeper than that. It's _more_ than that. Because jealousy seems something so trite to you, yet you _love_ Santana, and love to you is something completely untouched by triteness.

It's something which forces a discombobulation, or a disconnect, or a moment when all of your thoughts and your feelings separate.

Because you _love_ Santana.

You told her that you love her.

Yet.

It's all of those unspoken words which seek now to hound you.

And you tell yourself it's the unknowns of Quinn, and you assure yourself that it's the unknowns of Rachel, because if you stop to truly consider, if you join together your heart and your head and you slide aside the differences of separate, then perhaps her _what if I can't _is the only question you really need an answer to.

And that bugs you.

Or it burdens you in a way you're not at all used to. It's like, you told her it didn't matter to you, and you spoke words which treasured her need to tread careful, yet, maybe…

In the light of this day which drags up confusion, the illusion of being okay with careful is a little bit harder to hold onto. And that's what hurts your heart and that's what pains your head, because beyond all of the awesome of speaking your _love_ out loud, there's this space been made for uncertainty which breeds a deep need for more. Like the primal instinct you felt beneath her when she affirmed you with touches, you crave her to catch you now with words no longer said silent.

You want to hear love on her lips.

You feel like you need it.

And you think,

_What if I can't?_

Because, what if she really can't?

And you wonder; you plunder your depths as you consider the idea that everything you know she feels for you will always be trapped behind her fear of not deserving. And again, your heart hurts and you have a headache, and you can't keep your attention away from your phone.

You pick it up, you drop it down. You turn to your computer and you open a file.

You pick up your phone, again, because she still hasn't found you.

And that _con_founds you. It etches your face into one of more uncertainty as you drag yourself slowly through the rest of your day. Through minutes which pass like hours and through hours which pass unmarked by anything other than silence.

And sure.

Or not sure, yet you think perhaps you can trace some reason behind her silence. Like, it doesn't _have_ to be bad, it could just be quiet. You trust enough to consider that reuniting with Quinn may have been something which has shaken her just as much, if not more than you, because for Santana there's all of that history and stark reminders of places she hates.

Or the _her_ she hates who doesn't deserve you.

And you can imagine that wall of silence. You can imagine the way her frown will have twisted all of the words inside herself and kept them well away from you. And you're so eaten up and consumed by all of the imaginings, that when your phone finally rings and flashes bright with her number, you drop it back down to the desk again. The vibration shakes you and it takes you a moment to return to your present and answer her call.

You say _hey_.

And already, she pauses.

She doesn't hit you with a quick _hi _of reply, she doesn't pour forth words like a soothing balm, she stutters her way over _hello_; she almost flirts with something formal when she asks you how your day has been.

And you pause.

Because your day has been the crappiest and you wish to pull apart her silence.

You wish for something deeper.

Yet;

"It's been okay," you say. "I had that lunchtime meet with… _everyone_, so."

You find your own silence.

You listen to her beats of breath while you wait for her to speak to you, and when she doesn't do it in her own time, you dig in; you look for more than wishes and wants and you ask her, quite clearly;

"What's going on here, Santana?"

"…_I…_" she says, and then, "_…nothing._"

"You can't say _nothing_… You can't leave me wondering all day, and then just give me _nothing_."

"_Britt…_"

"No. Do you even know…"

You want to ask if she knows how hard your thoughts have been chasing each other all day, or if she knows about that fear you don't wish to taste that sits and drips doubt over all that you dream of. You slip on a sigh though; your words lose their footing, or you don't wish to do this over the length of a phone line. And so you say;

"I heard you're having dinner with Quinn."

Because that's factual. They're words which you can focus on and hope to find answer for, yet;

"_She wants to_," is all she offers in reply. And it's not enough.

"_She_ wants to? What about you Santana; do _you_ want to?"

"_It's complicated._"

"Isn't it always?"

Because, isn't it?

Always.

She doesn't sigh in reply, or find words fresh or fast, she sinks you back into that place where your questions sound louder, and you feel the frustration of non-revelation. You feel the scowl of your frown pulling your forehead tighter; you feel the bite as you dig your teeth into your lip.

And, you're going to say something.

You _need_ to say something. Only;

"_I need to see you,_" she says.

And.

Her needs; your needs.

Like that tightrope is back beneath your feet and you're struggling to keep your balance. And you feel the frustration in that, of course you do, yet… Still.

"What time will you be done?" you ask her.

"_I'm meeting Quinn again at seven. I can probably be with you for ten… Is that okay?_"

"Sure."

And silence.

Again.

And then she breaks it. Or she shatters you back somewhere soft with words like _I miss you_, because;

"_I miss you, Brittany…_"

She says, so heartfelt and true, like an ache you're only just identifying, because just yesterday it would have been enough, yet now.

You feel your eyes fill, or your eyes fill with feelings and you just _ache_.

And you say, almost silent, "I miss you too, Santana,"

Because, so much.

You miss the sound you've never heard from her.

And you need her to love you too.

…

It's a need that ferments throughout the unraveling of your day. Not that you fall apart, it's not like you don't find some kind of smile to flash Sam's way each time he looks to study you, and it's not as if you don't keep something chipper and dandy wrapped around your words when you spend time in the evening talking to your mom. You do feel somewhat unraveled though.

Like, if there's one thing you're sure of, then that's yourself, yet this feeling is something foreign to you, and this fear is something new for you, because you've never been in love before either, and you think, or you feel, like it should be so easy, because loving people is something that comes so easily to you. Loving Santana comes the easiest.

And that's not it…

…It's that uncovered need to be loved back, like a craving that touches you that place deeper than primal. Just…

You didn't know it would be this scary. You didn't realise you possessed a need deeper than the one to give.

And it feels like a fray on a thread that your mind can't stop pulling at.

Like you start to walk backwards, and you start to look at all of her words and all of the spaces she places between them, and you measure distances that creep outwards instead of touching you inwards, and it's like a terror ride where your knuckles clench tight and your stomach can't stop spinning through the loops and the bends that seem never ending.

And you _feel_.

Like a scream of frustration.

As equal as the fear, because you don't like this feeling. You don't like the way it's twisting you inside, and upending your sureties. You just _want. _

So much so, that when ten trips a little closer to half past the hour and she knocks on your door, you're almost afraid to answer it. You're almost scared of the way you want to put your demands on her; like you want to prove the point that she loves you, and you want to prove the point that all of the Quinn's in the world mean nothing next to her unuttered declarations to you.

And you move slowly, and with a different kind of caution.

And when she sees you, you think she knows.

Something, maybe. Because she smiles, and then she doesn't.

And you forget to smile at all.

You say _hey_, you stand aside from the door and you let her inside, but your lips don't find their easy lift; your eyes aren't quite as soft when you take her in. You do still take her in though. Your eyes dip low to follow the shape of her skirt and its length against legs that look so enticing… And from skirt to shirt, you crawl your gaze, and you wonder when you meet her own if she dressed for you, or if she dressed for dinner.

You don't ask. She doesn't answer.

She watches you.

She travels her eyes about your face, she drops them down to your hands held twisted tight together, and she steps forward on a sigh. She says _Brittany_;

She doesn't ask you what's wrong though, and you have to wonder again if she knows; if she can see beneath your surface and name the source for all of your fear.

She just draws nearer.

And all of your words are tied together inside.

Like, vice tight and bursting, silent yet loud. Because you want, yet you don't want to scare her, and you need her in way that doesn't tread careful.

You _ache_ with it.

And in the moment she touches you, you break with it.

Because you _know_ her, and when she reaches to soothe you with lips gently kissing, when her hands immediately go to the places she knows will pull you towards her, you're sure of what she's doing; you know she wants to assure you inside of her touch. And it isn't enough, no matter how much you wish it to be or want it to be, right now, it isn't enough.

And that frustration marks out the way you return her touches.

It bites your teeth against her lips.

Hard; and she flinches.

You feel her wince when your hands drive into her hair and you clench her closer to the kiss you're insisting upon her. And you don't pause to give her room to ask you, you don't make time to take a breath and sigh away this sentiment;

You _insist_. Again.

Your need as great as hers.

Or greater.

Because your words have sated her silent yearning; yet you,

You burn. Or it burns; like a madness you're this time making in yourself, and a madness you mark her with. Like desperation, but so much deeper. Because it cuts you open, and it pours you out,

Every doubt.

Every single way that today has found you wanting, you push back onto her.

You push into her.

Your body harsh as you slam her up against the wall behind. And you're not content to find her with kisses, it's not enough to hear her whimper beneath this force of feeling when the force within you is demanding that you seek and that you take, and that you _make_ her tell you with more than whimpers,

Or whispers,

Or nothing;

She says nothing to stop you.

When your fingers find their way between buttons to rip wide her shirt, when your teeth trail bites from her lips to her neck to her chest, she doesn't moan _Brittany_,

She groans compliant. Perhaps. Still willing to let touches do the work of her words. And for each one unheard, you go after her harder. Your fingers almost furious in their pursuit, your hands harsh in the silence when you lift her leg about you and you push her skirt from thigh to waist and you touch that place,

Not with grace, not with the reverence you're used to, but with the intent to grab something more lasting than pleasure; and she's ready for you. Like this moment has soaked her with the same sense of need to uncover whatever deeper place it is you wish to touch her. Your fingers instantly slick to sliding; or to slide in. Or thrust in;

She cries,

And you tear your touch out; and in, and harder.

She arches.

And this is no longer dancing, this isn't some dainty twirl around a fanciful feeling; this is what you feel for her stripped down and raw and begging, just…

_Begging_,

You think you are. From the top of your own tower maybe. And now you need her words.

You _need_,

And it's greedy in this instant. It's three fingers and it's knuckle deep, and it's not so much you holding her in the palm of your hand, as you fucking her outside of her senses and senseless - she _soaks_ the palm of your hand. And she shudders around a cry, and it's not enough.

Like a truth you force onto her lips with the kiss you now rip from her.

Because it isn't a dance,

And there's nothing even disguised as dainty in the way you pull her down to the floor with you; beneath you, or below. Because you can't slow down this feeling. Because for every touch you urge to burn her with, she rises to greet you. Like she's letting you carve her up into the shapes you need to see, and she wants so badly to be everything you need in her.

And maybe that's it.

Not a thing that halts you; you don't think you could hold back this moment if you tried.

Yet,

Maybe it's that which pauses your fingers from thrusting against her with such an enraged sense of oblivion; because she's letting you tear her apart.

And you don't want to hurt her.

This was never about hurting her.

What you want is the different sound of a different cry. You want the one you're used to where her eyes sparkle pretty and she looks at you like you're touching her somewhere divine; in that place where you _know_ so much more than you doubt.

And _Santana_,

You say. And her eyes _are_ sparkling. And she looks at you lost, maybe.

Like the edge of the oblivion you've led her to is still somewhere oh so scary, and these feelings you're finding in her are still touched by the taste of unsafe, and,

You've taken so much since the moment she arrived that you've broken her, maybe. Or she's broken beneath you, more than once, and she's given her all and you've taken her all, and maybe that look in her eye now is something scared because she knows what she hasn't given you, and maybe she feels like not enough, or not of worth, or somewhere still so undeserving.

And you refuse to leave her with that feeling.

You refuse to leave her.

You just,

You touch her softer. You touch her softness.

You let your fingers still inside her, and for the moment you just feel her. You fill her with something gentler, and you guide her again back inside of a rhythm that doesn't need to tear her apart to love her. And she moves with you. And it feels beyond reverence now, the way that you touch her, like it's not her world you're holding in your hands, but the whole scope of the universe, because you're buried so deep in her, and she's so wide open to you; and like a kiss, you want to seal it. You want to anoint it to her lips with all of your worth. Yet her eyes are fixed on you, and they still sparkle in ways you long to decipher, and

_Santana, _you say, urging her on to let it all go. Like begging of a different kind, wrapped up inside your whisper. And again, you say her name, and again,

You just want to love her.

And she looks, and you look deeper,

And you say,

_I love you_

And she clings to you. And she pulls you into her, and she coats your hand again with that need deeper than somewhere she can yet put her words to, and she pants, and she moans, and you tell her over and over,

Until she cries;

A different cry. And she breaks into pieces beneath you.

…

When you take yourself from her, you don't let go.

You think perhaps you hold on tighter, and you tell her _it's okay_, and you tell her _sorry_, and for each shudder she gives, you feel yourself falling apart. Because you didn't mean this. And, you did the same to her as you were insisting to yourself you didn't want. Like, you were begging for more than touches, yet, you hid away your words.

It's what you think about as you hold her close, and it's what's you chastise yourself for when you lift her up and lead her to the shower. Both of you hushed with silence. Both of you kind of sombre from the storm that's raged rampant around you. She stills lets you take care of her; she doesn't pull herself away when you reach towards her with soap coated hands, and when you wrap her up warm and tight in the fluffiest towel you can find, she lets you pull her close to you and she leans forwards towards your touch.

And you thank _god _you haven't lost her.

Because, you realise, like the swift blow of an epiphany;

_That's_ the source of your every fear. That was the thing you've been pushing back against all day.

With Quinn. And the silence. And, just…

The thought of losing her stops you dead.

It tumbles stories high inside you and it shakes the foundation of every single thing which holds you upright and sure. Because really, _what if I can't_ is exactly the same as _what if I lose her._

It aches the same. It scares you worse than any fear you've ever before quantified.

And you hold her close.

You let the silence hold you both for a long, long time before you dare to be the one to break anything else this evening. Because you think you've walked too far now to tread carefully. You can't keep existing in this space where things are left just a little bit unsaid. Not anymore. Not when your door is starting to be darkened by the shadows of a future that's fixing closer to the now. You have less than four weeks until the finale of the Rock the Vote series of shows, just a little more time until the election.

And then.

And now. You want to solidify yourself and Santana. You want to be sure that you're in this together and on the same page and facing the same enemies and fighting the same fight. And you need words to do that. You need real conversations and real ideas and just,

You need your reality to be the same as hers, because it's in every distance you've found in between that your doubts have deigned to reside. And you sigh that thought out loud. You shift just a little in the way you're holding onto her, and you say you're going to make a drink. Like, tea, maybe? Or hot chocolate?

You offer both, and she smiles up at you. She lets you lead her out to the kitchen, and she perches herself up on her stool at the breakfast bar; her eyes following you closely as you boil the water and find a box of something herbal with the words _calming_ printed onto the side. You show her the box and lift your brow and she nods.

And then, again, like a little wobble on the inside.

Because you don't feel very calmed. You still feel the uncertainty beneath your loss of control, and you still feel hardwired towards worry and you still feel,

"Brittany?"

She calls you.

And it's soft, of course, she is so soft for you, but also, you think, you hear her own fears hiding behind her tone, and you lift your eyes to greet her. You survey her from the seat you've taken opposite, and you let your gaze linger longingly on every contour of her face; on her lips.

On the way they move when she makes her words.

Like, "I'm sorry about today," she offers up to you, and you drop your eyes down to the countertop. "I didn't call sooner, because…"

And at the trail away, you ask,

"Because?"

"I didn't know what to say."

You look and she's looking back. You lift your brow again.

"So you thought it was better to say nothing? Do you know how worried I was… do you know…"

"Why?"

And you stare it at her. Through the silence. You feel the source of the fear eating your insides out, and you drop your eyes to focus instead on the way your hands are playing with your tea cup. You trail your fingers around the rim as you follow the circles being crafted in your mind. And you say;

"I got scared."

Like something you never wanted to admit. Something you've never felt before.

Something that makes her eyes flinch quick to a space above your shoulder. And,

"Santana?" you say, as soft for her as she is for you. "Look at me?"

And she looks; kind of like your fear makes her fears feel stronger.

It makes you want to reach across the counter and find her fingers with yours, yet, you want to try and make your words work first this time. So you breathe. You smile. You say;

"I only got scared because of how much I love you,"

And you watch her close her eyes.

"Because I do," you continue, making more spaces to say it. "And I've never felt like this before, like… Like everything inside of me is made just for you. And I think…"

You think. You struggle for your sentences.

"…That even though I'm really okay with careful, and… I don't want to make you feel like I'm pressuring you to give me something you're not ready to give, because I'd never want to do that Santana, I just…"

"I want to give you everything."

Her eyes are open and on you and she bites her lip before she speaks again;

"Don't you know how I feel? I thought you knew; I thought…"

"I do. I really do, I just… Today, with Quinn, and when you didn't call, I…"

"You thought I was with Quinn?"

"Weren't you?"

She dips her brow and her eyes darken just slightly as she considers your question;

"Sure, but… You thought I was _with_ Quinn?"

And no.

But,

"No," you say, "I didn't…"

But.

She looks at you harder and you drop your eyes down again. You twist your insides, you stretch out all of your thoughts as if to banish them, yet still,

All day you've been tortured by that scene in the alleyway.

By Quinn, pressed tight and taunting.

Just like your fears.

Just like,

"…I was _scared_," you say, and you feel yourself flinch, and you hear the answering flint in her tone;

"You _really_ think I'd do that to you?"

"No, I don't… I _don't_, Santana, I just…"

You look at her imploring, yet she's shifting her gaze every way but yours, and again you want to reach to soothe her with a gentle touch, with something felt. And again you stop yourself.

You force yourself to find more words;

"I trust you," you say, "I believe in you, so much, I do, but what if…"

"What?" she asks, direct now and pinning you down with her gaze.

And maybe she wants you to voice her fears too.

Maybe you need to.

So you say, in a whisper, almost scared to be heard;

"_What if you can't_?"

And she knows, because she doesn't ask for elaboration or for you to break it down and explain it any way other than the obvious one. And she looks. And she looks. And;

"I can," she says.

Hard.

And it's your turn to look. And listen, perhaps, because she sighs. Frustrated, like her inability to just say what she wants to say torments her as much as it does you. You watch her trying though; you note her tightened grip on her tea cup and the way her teeth seem to bite even harder at her lip.

And you wait.

And she says;

"Today, with Quinn, the only reason I didn't call straight away… I just, I didn't know what to tell you, and I had stuff to figure out…"

She pauses to watch your reaction, yet you sit still and steady.

"…It was weird, Britt, _she_ was weird, and then, I knew she was with you, so I didn't want to call, and…"

"You could've text me, San."

"Text you what, though?"

You shrug. You think anything would have been nicer than nothing.

You say it out loud and she nods her head slowly along to your words.

"I didn't think," she says, "I just thought… I don't know. I didn't think. I'm sorry."

And _you_ think.

Back to your earlier determinations where you guessed at the head-spin Quinn could've put Santana in, and where you wondered something similar to justify her silence. Like she had too much to think about and feel about and it chased all of her easy words away.

It doesn't make it easier to know though. It didn't help at all with the flurry of fears throughout the day that's led you to this moment.

And so you say, or you ask her;

"Please don't do that again, Santana," and you use your softest voice. Because you do understand, you do, you just need the something more, and when she looks across at you in query, you soften out some more words to explain what you mean; "Just… Call me next time, or text me… something. It doesn't matter what, just something… just so I know that you're still there."

And she looks again; like perhaps she's slowly figuring you out.

Maybe.

And her hand reaches across the countertop, and you stare at the distance between it and you, and still, inside, you feel like not yet. Because;

"I'm so scared of losing you, Santana," you admit. And you hide it inside of a whisper, and it feels like all of the air leaves your body. Like, weightless, for a moment, perhaps. Yet,

_Brittany,_

She calls you again. Back inside of this moment. And she reaches further across the breakfast bar, and whether you want it or not, her touch takes the cup from your hand and she holds onto your fingers. Kind of tightly.

Kind of,

Like,

Her eyes are looking into you, and then they look down, and up,

And you see her fighting her own insides, like, you _see _it. Her struggle.

And then.

Just.

Not so much of a struggle.

Because her other hand joins her first, and she holds you firmly in her grasp, and she says, _I_…

And she stops. Her gaze grabs onto yours, and,

"San," you say, but she shakes her head to stop you.

"No Brittany… just, no, okay?"

"Okay?" you say, somewhat unsure,

Yet,

Or better yet,

"I _love_ you."

She states it, sure and succinct, and she doesn't hide it inside a whisper.

It isn't a whisper. And it isn't weightless. It's like the ground beneath your feet.

Like a sure step. Maybe, yet you still think your mouth is stuck on open, and your eyes are stuck wide, and your breaths,

You have none.

And she says _Brittany. _And now it is a whisper, like a question. Like, "Say something…"

She implores you, and, "Okay," you offer again, struck somewhere dumb or stupid.

Because you didn't expect her words to appear right now. You didn't think for even a moment that she'd just step outside of all you know and make you know something more. Like, you already guessed that she's the bravest girl in the world, and now,

More. So much more. And you look at her, and she's looking back at you, and you look down at your hands and she's holding onto you, and you think, or you feel, like a smile you can't fight. Honestly. If there was a word for the way that every single part of each particle inside you seems to want to lift up and towards her, then, that's how you feel. Like every single universe is smiling inside you. Like, "You do?" you ask her, infinitely curious, and she looks almost as dumbstruck as you feel.

She nods though. She draws her eyebrows in together as if her thoughts are just now catching up to her words outspoken, and she nods once more. She says _sure_, as if this is a blasé moment. She flits her gaze down and then up again, and then down, and then, "You're not going to lose me, okay? I don't ever want you to think that… I wouldn't _do_ that to you. I…"

She pauses for a second, yet, it's enough. She's enough.

Everything is enough.

And you say, "I love you." You say _Santana_. You speak her sentiments the same as yours, and when she tightens her hold about your hands, you feel your fears begin to lose the grip they were holding on your heart.

…

You lose a lot more than fear in the minutes that follow.

Like, she lifts herself up from her stool and she walks her way round the breakfast bar towards you, and she takes you. By the hand, again, as if she's inviting your return to a familiar dance. And you do dance with her, quite sublimely. Perhaps divinely. Because she whispers words in your ear when she takes refuge inside you, and those words take seed and they sink down to take root within each fiber of your being;

Because she _loves_ you.

Quite completely.

Like the opposite way to how you pushed her for the words earlier, she just whispers them inside you, and she touches them inside you, and the two together are like nothing you've imagined ever knowing before. Like once again she's showing you things inside yourself that you didn't yet know you didn't know, but now that you do know, you're sure that you've always known them.

And your thoughts tumble about like certainties chasing after certainties and nothing that's left unsure. You let her lift you up and you let her push you over and when you fall fast and hard she's waiting there to catch you. With a smile. With soft kisses against your lips.

With her continued _I love you._

And it feels perfect.

Again. Yet more so.

Even past the afterglow, even when you've pulled the sheets up around your shoulders and she's settled down inside your hold, and _that_ oneword comes up again; it doesn't faze you.

She says _Quinn_ and you no longer flinch. You just carry on running your fingers up and down the smooth skin of her arm laid out across you, and you listen easy to all of her words. You form thoughts around her thinking, and you let it all sink in.

Because she's starting to speak the same thoughts as you.

She says; "…it was _really_ weird. I mean, we've fought loads before, and we do always make it up, but… she made it _too_ easy, Britt. Like, she apologised to me. And that never happens…"

And she says, "…I don't know what her angle is, but I'm damn sure she's working one…"

And then she says; "Do you think she's cooking up some huge massive master plan?"

And you just let it all sink in.

You let a different set of circles turn, and you let different pieces shift about inside you and you think through theories and you slide across thoughts, and you shrug your arms around her.

"I'm sure she's plotting something."

"Right? And no way this can just be about me… Fuck knows if it's just about Rachel. I just… She's different, Britt, and I'm not sure it's even a worse kind of different, there's just…"

"Do you trust her?" you ask, like a question from nowhere, and it pauses her.

It pauses your fingers for a moment, and then she says _no_;

"I've seen Quinn switch it up in an instant, more than once, and sure, this situation seems a little different, but no way do I trust her. I can't even figure out what it is she wants anymore."

And your thoughts slip back to earlier.

You remember the ways that you wondered when you were at lunch, and again you wonder, like a question that holds all of the answers;

_What is it that Quinn really wants?_

And you ponder for a moment; just the slightest second before you divert your attention away from pointless puzzles, to focus again on your present. And you just listen to her making words, nestled deep in your arms. Because she's spinning her own theories now and she's getting more and more outlandish with her sleepy sounding ideas on whether Quinn might have spent the weekend hiring an assassin to take Rachel down at the big finale, or if maybe she's planning to explode the whole auditorium and take everyone down at once, or…

She drifts, and then she shifts a little deeper inside of your arms.

You can tell when she finally trips over the line into sleeping, because her breaths even out into a perfect rhythm, and you let yourself lay steady inside of the beat. You're not sleeping yet yourself;

You feel like, maybe, you just want to hold onto this moment for a sweet minute more.

Because it feels perfect, again, and it actually is.

And you communicate that notion to her mostly sleeping form. You turn yourself a little so as you can hold her tight inside the angle of your body, and you drop the softest of kisses down onto the skin of her shoulder, and you work your way up to her ear, and; _I love you_, you say. Once more for this day, just to confirm all of the fears reallyhave been swept away. And she stretches her body back into yours, and through the beginnings of her sleep she sighs out a sound which assures you the same.

And it's enough; because she loves you.

And to you, her love is everything.

…


End file.
